Over at the ice track, the arranging party had brought over a white 1991 BMW E34. For two euro per lap, you could flog it around the ice track, handily avoiding destroying anything on your own personal car. Naturally, I handed over a five euro note and some change and gave the loaner a go.

If you’re going to bring over a cheap beater for everyone to get it wrong in, it’s not going to be the most spotless car in the universe. This was a given, and the BMW didn’t make an exception. All the usual spots were peppered with rust, the seats looked like the aftermath of a spontaneous human combustion, and someone had rubbed a white animal on the headlining. The dashboard had vomited out the stereo wiring, and the whole car reeked of Wunderbaum. Just like it should.

Of course, with 450k on the clock, some wear can be expected. The car wasn’t even road legal, so it was brought to the track on a trailer bed.

Off the line and off we went. The car was the cambelt version of my car, the M40-engined 518i (mine’s the cam chain one, the M43), so the available power was pretty much comparable. Naturally when I drove it I had no clue of which engine the car had, and the booming note of the MacGyvered exhaust was a nice touch.

The brakes felt really mushy on the car (“Alright, we have no brakes”), and the gearshift’s sloppiness was ten-fold, but it was nice to discover the steering didn’t feel like a beater car’s. The car was perfectly chuckable, and it felt like the exact car in which anyone should be tooling around the track, with nothing to lose except their pride – when you judged a cornering speed and steering angle wrong.

After my stint with the loaner and a quick lunch break, it was Janne’s turn to try it out. After just a single lap, he was flagged back to the pits. “What’d I do?!” he asked, wondering if he had drifted it too enthusiastically. “Siulta tippuu kohta pyörä”, they answered, “Yer wheel’s about to fall off.”

Oh yeah, the loaner car ran on loaned winter tires and you should always re-tighten the nuts after you’ve driven on freshly swapped wheels for a while. The guys at the pit straight had noticed a freakish wobble, and quickly flagged the car back.

Turned out all of the wheels were a bit on the loose side. “That should do the trick.”

The re-tightening didn’t keep Janne from showing a snow bank some rough love. The dent was there when we got the car, luckily.

[Images: Copyright 2012 Hooniverse/Antti Kautonen]