PALMER — Under bright sunshine Thursday on the Palmer Airport tarmac, Wasilla police investigator Bill Rapson accelerated his car for 20 yards, then turned the wheel hard to the left and hit the brakes.

The pavement was dry. The car was only going 35.

Still, somehow it spun multiple rotations, tires squealing and smoking.

ROBERT DeBERRY/Frontiersman Wasilla police office Ben Dudley speeds along a closed course in a training vehicle equippd with a Skidcar Systems device that helps simulate adverse driving conditions.

That’s because he was driving no ordinary 1998 Ford Crown Victoria. This is the Skidcar, outfitted with Swedish-made outriggers which, through hydraulics, lift the vehicle, relieving pressure on the its tires and reducing traction. The Skidcar gives officers a taste of what it’s like to try and stop when driving full speed, but without having to actually drive that fast.

“You still get those same G-forces as if you were going 50 miles per hour,” said Rapson’s cohort, investigator Al Wysocki.

Wysocki, during the classroom portion of the training, said the point is to simulate stressful situations to show students how to “use superior knowledge to avoid situations that require superior skills.”

Wasilla Police Chief Angella Long said the Skidcar training is less to teach officers special techniques necessary for police pursuits or other specialized driving than it is to teach them how to drive in inclement weather and just generally make them safer drivers.

Deputy Chief Greg Wood said he hopes to make the trainings an annual happening for the department, along with pursuit driving courses.

Greg Russell is a traveling trainer with the Alaska Police Standards Council. He was in Wasilla this week to train four officers, who can then train other officers with the Skidcar. The council travels around the state with the Skidcar, offering training to departments from Bethel to Kodiak.

Russell said there’s only two of these rigs in the state, one at the Alaska State Troopers academy in Sitka, the other based in Anchorage, property of the council.

Thursday at the airport, Rapson and Wysocki put two students through their paces, driving four circuits through a traffic course.

The first, Rapson explained, was just to get the feel of the course. The second took traction off the rear wheels, the third took traction from the front wheels.

And the fourth?

“That’s the day that you should have stayed home. You’ve got nothing,” Rapson said, no traction front or back.

The students lost control at times, knocked over cones at others. One skid was so intense it threw dirt — or tire dust or something similarly grainy — through the open driver’s-side window into the driver’s eyes.

But when the students managed to heed Rapson’s advice — straighten out the wheels during a skid, take corners wide — they did much better.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.