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"  Subaru has been touting the advantages of all-wheel-drive systems for years\u2014today all of its cars come with the feature. This all-wheel-all-the-time strategy has worked for Subaru\u2014during last year&amp;#039;s recession, Subaru had its best year ever. But while most American buyers think of all-wheel drive as something you need to stay safely on the road during a snowstorm, Subaru has experience with the systems in entirely other arenas. The company has generations of racing under its belt in some of the most demanding conditions on the planet. To prove that the Subaru Impreza WRX and WRX STI have teeth that are just as sharp on-road as they are off, we joined the company in Park City, Utah, to learn a thing or two about car control on a private ice track. By the time we arrived, most of the ice and snow had given way to roughly three inches of mud. Fortunately, our instructor, John Haugland, has had plenty of experience driving on all three surfaces. Haugland is a seasoned veteran of the World Rally Championship (WRC), having competed in 27 runnings of the series since 1965. This guy knows how to get sideways.   After a quick classroom session with our resident rally legend, Subaru turned us loose on the track in a standard WRX. Of course, learning how to brake, throttle and steer to control the car as you rapidly approach a mud/ice hairpin and actually applying that knowledge are two different things. Even with Haugland&amp;#039;s instruction booming in my head, accurately applying the correct throttle/brake recipe was no easy task. While the WRX does a solid job of keeping you pointed in the right direction, it&amp;#039;s easy to get the car sideways and sliding toward the approaching snowbank\u2014and that, it turns out, is a good thing. On slippery surfaces, it&amp;#039;s actually quicker and slightly safer to kick out the car&amp;#039;s rear end. But this driving technique is best practiced in a safe area, with a qualified instructor riding shotgun.  After a few laps, Subaru finally let us play with the WRX STI. Unlike the WRX, the STI allows you to adjust the center differential to fit your tastes, with up to eight different settings. Want neutral steering? No problem. Want a rear-wheel bias? Not an issue. Just flick the knob situated between the two front seats and you&amp;#039;re good to go. The result is a car that you can customize to fit your driving style depending on the conditions, and it&amp;#039;s absolutely nailed to the track compared to the WRX.   So are we any better on the slippery stuff than we were before playing around in the Utah mud? Probably, although it would take a lifetime of bashing a Subaru WRX through the snow to reach anything close to Haugland&amp;#039;s skill level. The veteran was literally driving circles around the auto journos on the track. We&amp;#039;ll never look at an empty, snow-covered parking lot in the same way again. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a5522/a-crash-course-in-ice-rally-wi/>