I am not a skittish or unsure driver by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I was reckless as a teenager and into my very early twenties-- a recklessness which experience bronzed into a sort of smart assuredness. I am, in my opinion, a skillful road driver, learned from mistakes past, and with a glowing safety and disciplinary record for the past eleven or twelve years as evidence towards such.

I say all of this only to provide proper framing for this story:

Minnesota got a mild winter storm today, enough to merely cause a routine mixture of school cancellations and snow plow runs. I'd planned to drive my 350z to the bug out house, and by late afternoon the roads were well plowed-- sufficiently clear enough to not deter me from my plan.

My Bridgestone Blizzak LM-60s are into their eigth winter, and have a couple of slow leaks. This might sound like a prohibition against travel, but I've put so few miles on the car-- twenty thousand in eight years, with well less than half of those on the Blizzaks-- that these tires have abundant tread remaining. In fact, my ample and altogether enjoyable experiences in this car, on these tires, and in snowy weather, over the course of nearly a decade, made me quite confident as to the inevitable fruitfulness of my trip. And indeed, the first portion of my journey went so smoothly as to assuage any niggling doubts I held with regards to the sagacity of my arrangements.

Dozens of miles outside of the city limits, and with traffic beginning to thin, I felt-- with curious suddenness-- a bit of movement from the back tires. This was to prove mere foreshadowing, as not long after I very nearly lost total control of the car! My surprise was palpable-- I was driving in a straight line, on even terrain, with very little throttle application, on a road that did not appear to be particularly slick. The conditions did not seem sufficient to bring about such an episode.

Alarmed, I cautiously diverted the car into the right lane-- I had been executing a gradual passing maneuver at the point of the alarming loss of grip-- and began to notice even more movement from the back end. Before I could register it with certainty, the car entered into a period of such sustained and incredible instability, I can only credit my limited motorsports, and quite extensive video game, experience for having avoid the ditch!

I proceeded to bleed off speed, and it wasn't until I reached a tepid thirty five miles per hour-- on a seventy miles per hour road-- that the car communicated to me any sense of security at all. A white knuckled progression to the very next township, whereupon I steered the car back in the direction I'd just come-- towards home-- did not bring an end to my stress. Indeed, the car had become almost utterly undrivable, with any slight undulation or bend in the road causing extreme losses in grip, and equally extensive duress to my by-then fragile confidence on completing my journey without a serious mishap.

Seemingly I was the only one in such straits, with all-wheel drive SUVs, rear-wheel drive pickup trucks, front-wheel drive econoboxes, and massive eighteen-wheeled behemoths cruising past me at speeds up to eighty miles per hour, where I could only reach perhaps fifty miles per hour without near-total losses in straight-line stability. This only added to my consternation, as car after car executed high-speed passing maneuvers inches past my driver's side door, causing wrinkles in the high levels of concentration my situation demanded! At one point, things were so dire that I entertained the very real possibility of having to ditch the car on the shoulder, and have it towed the remainder of the distance.

But, I reasoned that at a slow enough pace, I could keep the car pointed in a homeward direction. And after what seemed an eternity, my judgement was vindicated, as I arrived at the safety of my garage, whereupon I parked the car, and made a resolution: I will never, ever attempt to drive my 350z for extended distances on wintery highways again. It's astonishing that it took me eight years of winter driving in the car to attempt such a feat-- but now I have, and now I know the outcome!