> 20th december 2017

The car scene is easy to explain: People work on their cars in winter and show them on different events in summer. The problem is, I don`t like it, if everything is the same all the time, I don`t work that much on my car either and I miss some of the great folks from the car scene all the winter time. So I am introducing ap-Sportfahrwerke to an idea from me: Why should we not organize a winter event for the end of the season? At first I get some doubting questions but finally they deiced to give it a chance. Well I do have some doubts myself but I started working on the event. Back than I did not even had a slight idea about all the troubles wich were ahead of me but at the end everything turned out great and I may have found my new favorite event. But lets start at the beginning.

The planning
As always, I started with the planning around 3 month before the day of the event an so I started a Facebook event which should give everybody the chance to apply for one of the 30-35 places we had to offer. „Post a pic of your car and maybe you can join us!“ Of course, I am telling everybody that the name of the event is „low in the snow“, that it will be on the 16. of December and that we are planning to reach about 1000 meters above sea-level and that we will drive a pass into the mountains. So, snow may occur! In short words: You should have winter tires on your car, you should be sure that car and driver are fit for a winter trip in severe weather conditions and if you are not sure, please don`t block a starting-position for somebody else who would be happy to join. From that time all was on you and not anymore in my hands. Which cars would apply? To much old junk and stock or some cool rides? Surprisingly it started out really great. Besides some typical winter cars and SUV`s there has been very many Japanese sports-cars, american muscle-cars and even old-timers.

I was overwhelmed. And this feeling did not change until the Sunday before the event. That was the day when I posted a picture from the area we would go together with the weather forecast. The s-word was suddenly spoken out and the s-word became fact. Snow! Surprisingly there would be snow in winter, who had ever thought about that? Within 24 hours about 30 people wrote me that they could not show up because of several reasons and while Monday turned into Friday, 50 percent of the people had turned down their invitations. Of course, there have been dozends of other people who would have loved to join but now, it was just one day to go. Would anybody still have time on such a short call or did the „low in the snow“ event just already killed itself? Well, I was sending out some more invitations and finally I decided I am pretty sick of it. It was Friday night and I stopped watching Facebook and all the trouble. So, the next day would be a surprise for me and I was more than ready to make the first „low in the snow“ event also the last „low in the snow“ event.

The very next morning…
…came and I found myself in a grey and cold winter day. I was thinking there will be not enough cars and people to make the guys from ap-Sportfahrwerke happy. In addition I knew from past events that there are also people who would not show up, even if they did not even gave notice about their absence. Big expectations from ap-Sportfahrwerke, assurances I made to the great restaurant for lunch, so many promises and maybe I was not able to keep them all. At least I decided quiet some time ago not to drive myself.

Taking pictures, running the whole event and from now on, also filming for our upcoming car-show seemed a bit much. So, I was happy to be the co-driver in a little white Fiat, called snowflake. Its a nice little ride but I am probably a bit to tall for the car and it was also packed with movie equipment and with the give-aways from ap-Sportfahrwerke. Anyway, we were driving to the first meeting point in Fürstenfeldbruck and not much time later 4 cars showed up, a Camaro, an old Ford Escort, an 4-wheel drive Audi and an pretty beat up BMW. All the folks were in a good mood and together we started the trip to the official meeting point at the McDonalds restaurant in Gilching, not to far away.

Gilching, the mood gets better
In the moment we are arriving the parking-lot, I saw that there is hope. More cars and people are already here than I thought they would be. A dukes of hazzard BMW, an old Escord RS2000, a brand new Cadillac CTS, the well known Hulk bus, a super low Ford Fiesta ST – check. It`s all here, this and much more. A very nice surprise. Talking about surprises, many people had a different surprise when Andree and Bianca arrived at the parking-lot in their „Porzelack” Opel which reminds on a german police car. There have been people who already made a 500 km drive form their homes to Gilching, there have been guests from Austria, there were also folks who needed to work nightshift by the end of the day and there is Jasmin with her whole leg in splints – but there are all here, looking forward to a great day. Some of the people even brought me some christmas gifts. How great is that and from now on – I was looking forward to things to come.

Gilching – Starnberg – Tutzing
The first part of our trip was following the streets through one of the most beautiful parts of Bavaria. We were driving to Starnberg, following the lake of Starnberg with all the great and very expensive mansions on the waterside, beautiful nature with the mountains framing everything in the back. Even the sky started to become more friendly and blue spots as well as some sun made their way through the clouds. Today, nobody seemed to have problems with the roadbook and all together we arrived at our next meeting-point near the little town of Tutzing.

Fabi had some refreshments in the trunk while one of our photographers (Jessy from JJGraphy) brought us lots of self made christmas cookies. Some of them were even made in ap-Sportfahrwerke and Asphalthelden design. How great is that?! Talking about photographers: Stefan from STH car photography had also joined us and it was his 5th trip with us, and they all turned out great. He is one safe bet if you are interested in great car pictures. So, lets go, lunch is waiting.

Tutzing – Seeshaupt – Bad Tölz
While the sky was turning grey again, we found our way to Bad Tölz. We were looking for a jailhouse. Not some usual jailhouse – the jailhouse, an american style restaurant. The owner had reserved us VIP parking right at the front door, for all the cars as well as some of his nicest seating places in his restaurant.

Great food, a nice atmosphere and a lots of pictures later everybody was full, happy and we had warmed up pretty well. Time to hit the road again, because it started snowing.

Bad Tölz – Kochelsee
Arriving at the lake of Kochel some time later, the snow turned into a little winter storm but no problem for us. First of all – time for some presents. I brought a big box of give-aways for the participants from ap-Sportfahrwerke and the most important present was the 2018 girl & car calendar, which we had shot in Berlin during summer time. And I had one more surprise in my sleeve.

There have been 3 people from the casting for our car-show within the group. They should get a chance to present themselfs again to the viewers. So we had a chair standing in the middle of nowhere, right on the waterfront of lake Kochel. They had to sit there in the middle of the snow storm and tell the viewers some about our „low in the snow event“. All three performed very well and we had great fun. But being soak and wet and super cold it was time to hit the road again and to follow the rest of us. Because I had sent the others already to our final destination, so they did not need to stand around in the cold.

Kesselberg and Mittenwald
We were right at the foot of a little mountain called the „Kesselberg“ and we needed to pass the mountain to get to the end of our journey, the beautiful town of Mittenwald. So we started our tour up the mountain while the snowstorm got really bad. From minute to minute the streets got more white and white while the night was also falling pretty fast now.

It was a heck of a drive over the mountain through the winter night but it was also unbelievable wonderful with all that nature around us. Finally we reached Mittenwald, a very traditional little village within the mountains, famous for building great violins. The rest of our group was already waiting for us at the traditional Christkindlmarkt, a christmas market with candle-light, fire, tasty food and still lots of snow. Perfect Christmas feeling! Unfortunately, most of us needed to go home that day, so sooner or later they were leaving us. But some of us had booked hotel-rooms and we had a very nice rest of the evening, with a lot of car-talk.

Summary
Low in the Snow was a try and finally it was a great experience. I really think we started a wonderful new event here. That can be also read in the comments of the participants on the social networks. The nicest one was a mail a got by that evening: Thank you, this was the best day of the year to me. What can I say? Thank you and a happy new year to everybody.

Text: Andreas Leffler
Pictures: STH Car Photography, JJGraphy, Carina Kell und Andreas Leffler