I have to share this...
Wednesday night here in Northern llinois we had a very severe Ice Shower. I worked late at the office - which turned out to be a godsend - and left about 7:45pm.
I drive a 2002 Mazda Miata. Absolutely blast to drive, etc.
Anyway, I was tooling along on the Tollway (I-88 West) at around 70-75 MPH, roads not too bad as much as I can see. Very little traffic. I'm in the right lane of the 2 lane westbound road.
I start daydreaming, and listening to the CD player -
"Best of Jethro Tull Acoustic", a true classic.
All of a sudden - I do a complete 180, absolutely no control on the steering, pure ice. Car starts to drift to the left, zero steering capability.
Oddly, no panic whatsover, I'm fine with this. I slide straight over to the left lane, then onwards into the grass/ditch that seperates the east/west bound lanes. Again, luckily there is zero traffic.
The first thing that came to my mind was:"No way I'm gonna get stuck in this effin ditch on this cold, crappy effin night, I'm hungry, I want to get home, and I'm tired".
So I floor it, and countersteer as best I can in the icy, muddy, snow covered ditch. Next thing I know, miraculously, I'm heading UP the ditch, back towards the road, snow, mud and ice flying. Bad news is: I'm heading the wrong way. Still floored, and sliding left to right and every which-a-way, the car does a 180, and now I'm back on the road, headed in the proper direction.
It took just a few - maybe 5 - seconds to catch my bearings, calm down a tad, and on I went. No harm, no foul.
Maybe it's age, maybe it's experience, maybe I'm nuts, but for whatever reason I never had any panic, never got excited, and in retrospect had pretty much 100% control of the situation all the way through.
Or... maybe I was just plain lucky.
Anyway, I had to share as it WAS pretty hairy, and... fun?
