I took a Chevy Cruze off-roading through the snow — here's what it taught me about winter driving

I ended up letting go of the brakes and skidding into a two-way street that was (thankfully) devoid of cars.

But I like to think I've come a long way since then. At the very least, I survived driving slalom-style in a Chevy Cruze in the snow, and that should redeem my past errors somewhat.

That slalom snow course I drove on was at Lime Rock Park, the site of a road racing circuit in Lakeville Connecticut. I drove up there for a class organized by Chevrolet to learn more about the ins-and-outs of winter driving.

I didn't get to drive on the big-girl racing circuit, but I did a few rounds on their winding snow course and conducted a few acceleration tests.

Here's everything I learned from Pat Daly, a Lime Rock driving instructor who rode shotgun with me on the winter course, and others on campus that day:

Welcome to Lime Rock Park. Here you see the entrance to the slalom course Chevrolet created using a mix of freshly fallen snow from the night before and some they brought in.

Chevrolet roped off the winding course with orange traffic cones, but the track wasn't so packed down that you didn't get the true off-road experience.

We first learned that it's most dangerous to drive when the temperature ranges between 24 and 34 degrees Fahrenheit with snow or ice on the ground. That's because snow or ice will actively melt in that temperature range when cars drive over it, so your tires can't grip as easily.

It was between 30 and 32 degrees Fahrenheit during my snow runs, so I was living on the edge! We did acceleration tests on dry gravel (left) and pure snow (right). When I slammed the accelerator on my snow speed test, I fishtailed to a stop.

Obviously, most wouldn't try booking it in the snow, but it did help me appreciate how traction degrades based on the conditions. For reference, snow has 50% less grip than a normal road surface, and ice has 75% less grip.

But on to the actual tips. First, there are a few really small things you can do to be a better driver in the snow. The first is to not raise the heat so much inside that it makes you drowsy.

You should also take off your puffy coat when you drive so you have better steering capabilities in the event that you skid and need to react immediately.

When it comes to driving, remember that even though you always want to be cautious, you don't want to be so cautious it turns into a dangerous scenario. The best case scenario to explain this is when you're going uphill: don't be shy punching on the accelerator because you can easily stall in the middle of a hill otherwise.

In the event that you do stall in the middle of a hill, it's best to work with gravity. Daly told me that you should try to slowly reverse to the bottom of the hill rather than re-attempt the uphill battle from the middle of the hill.

Going downhill, it shouldn't be too surprising that the instructors had the opposite advice. You want to brake early, well before you start descending down a hill.

But let's talk about what happens when you actually skid. There are two things you can experience, one is called a front end loss of grip, or understeer. This is when you're trying to steer but the car isn't responding.

A car understeers because the front tires have lost their grip, so you DON'T want to keep steering because it already means you're asking the tires to do too much. You also DON'T want to brake for the same reason.

In the event your car is understeering in the snow, you want to let it correct itself. Don't brake, don't try to steer more, but DO take your foot off the gas.

However, you can also oversteer, which is when your car fishtails or steers more than you'd like, when driving in the snow. This occurs when you drive too fast and lose grip in your rear tires.

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This is where you may have heard the expression "slide into the skid." Basically, if you're car is slipping all over the place, you want to go with it and GENTLY steer in that direction. You can also GENTLY apply the gas to transfer some of the weight back to the rear wheels.

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You should ALWAYS be looking in the direction you want the car to go in, rather than looking where it seems to be skidding on its own. If you look where you want the car to go, it will help you naturally steer in that direction.

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The key takeaway is that if you must drive in snow, take it slower than usual and only rely on the acceleration if the situation really calls for it, like a big hill. If the car starts to skid, don't panic and give the car time to work itself out.

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