“Safe driving pushed to the limit, and lots of fun” – that is the motto of the first AMG Winter Sporting for strong women in Swedish Lapland.
The municipality of Arjeplog has a population of just 0.2 people per square kilometer (0.4 square miles). There are more snowmobiles than women here – something Mercedes-AMG now wants to change! The performance and sports car manufacturer hosted an event for women only there for the first time. The invitees are motorsport-savvy entrepreneurs, VIPs, and big names from fashion and acting, who not only want to have a lot of fun, but also to learn a performance-oriented, safe driving style on ice and snow.
At temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees, the AMG team prepares perfect ice tracks every day on the lakes frozen up to a meter (three feet) thick. They are modeled on world-famous racetracks – the perfect basis for maximum driving fun!
The strong women: the 23-time professional world champion in kickboxing, Dr. Christine Theiss, designer Nobi Talai, Princess Lilly zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, the actresses Sandra von Ruffin and Brigitte Zeh, and the international photographer Esther Haase. Their goal? Achieving a new level of driving skill and then demonstrating the perfect drift doughnut on ice.
The participants are welcomed to the AMG Lodge in Arjeplog with champagne and a dinner together. The next morning, pulses start to quicken. To kick things off, the instructors give the ladies an extensive safety briefing before they embark on the exclusive outdoor adventure. At the largest and coolest winter car test site in the world, the women can enjoy feeling the DNA of the Mercedes-AMG vehicles and testing everything in the garages.
For three months of the year Arjeplog, with its lonely ice lakes 70 kilometers (around 43 miles) south of the Arctic Circle, turns into an oversized adventure playground.
Over the course of the three days of driving training, the participants improve their driving skills in next to no time. Amid the picturesque landscape, they redefine their own boundaries and work together as a close, strong team. The agenda includes maneuvers such as circular drifts, braking, swerving, understeering, and oversteering – the perfect basis for safe and sporty driving in winter!
As a final highlight, the women enjoy pure adrenaline during an ice taxi ride with the instructors: the eight cylinders on spike tires in a wild ride over bare ice on a straight track and round spectacularly tight bends make their hearts happily skip a beat.
“Ready to rumble! Nothing is too fast for me!”
Sandra von Ruffin, actress
To reduce the levels of petrol coursing through their veins, the women follow this experience with the silence of the wonderful Swedish nature. Dog sleds pull the group through the winter forest at breathtaking speed. The beautiful huskies break everyone’s hearts with wild barking and enthusiastic joy at the adventure, and open their souls to something that has to be experienced to be described.
After warming up in the hot Jacuzzi, dinners together at the Iglootel and Hunting Lodge await in the evenings. The cozy furs by the fireplace of the AMG Lodge offer a chance for relaxation. On the last evening, the participants look back on the adventures of the past days by a campfire with Scandinavian mulled wine and dancing. At the end of this magical time in Swedish Lapland, they all not only feel closely connected, but also part of the world’s fastest family.
#amg4women
Photography | Benjamin Pichelmann
Special thanks to: Handstich
Performance on the edge of the Arctic Circle.
