Snow/Ice/Off Road driving

With all the talk about snow/ice driving, I figure it is a good time to take the Prius to a rallycross to see what it can do. The Prius I drove was equipped with stock size new Hankook I-Pike snow tires on all four. For those who don't know rallycross, it is pretty much a timed obstacle course on dirt/snow/ice in a big unpaved field at speeds between 20-50mph. Before I started, I thought the Prius might be a decent car in the Stock FWD class since the CVT can keep the engine at its powerband. While in theory it might be true, but in reality it did nothing thanks to the intrusive traction control. The traction control would come on as soon as any front wheel started spinning. It came on so hard that the car was slowed to a crawl off couple of the corners. Matter of fact, I was stuck in a snowbank when the car refused to come out of it. The Prius also has an extremely slow steering rack that prevents it from taking any corners with ease. Lastly, the suspension was too soft as the car bottomed out way too many times on some small jumps and snowpiles.

To sum it up, here are the pros and cons of the car
#1 Stability control. The unit only kicks on when you truly need it, it was extremely helpful on ice.
#2 Maybe its because I was going too slow, but the brakes were great on the car.
#3 My last run was in the dark, the non HID headlight performed great.

Cons:
#1 Traction control, the unit is awful as it would slow the car too much when you need it to spin (climbing hills). I didn't use maintainence mode to shut it off at the rallyx, but I will do it on the street if I need to.
#2 Slow steering rack.
#3 Suspension was too soft, I bottomed out a few times

I also have to add that the I-Pikes I had were marginal too, they weren't as good as the Blizzaks I had last year. The I-pikes are good in the snow, but they are truly awful on ice and slush.

I understand the Prius is not a race car, but I sure did learn more about the car in six minutes of rallycrossing than I did in two seasons of driving it on the street.