BY
JOSH JACQUOT AND DAVE COLEMAN
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN PRESCOTT AND TIM MCKINNEY |
Have you ever watched
a rally car's death-defying slide through the woods and
wished you could drive like that? Stupid question. Want
to know where to learn? We did too.
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Every conventional driving
school teaches you never to slide the car. They preach
clean, smooth lines as the fast way around a corner. But
conventional driving schools don't teach you to drive
in the dirt. Or the snow. Or dirty , icy , gravely pavement.
The best drivers in the world are sideways at every turn,
so we wanted to find the schools that teach you to slide
- institutions of higher hooliganism, if you will - and
master the techniques for ourselves. We also wanted to
see what the different schools had to offer, so we sent
editors to every single rally school in the country. All
two of them: Team O'Neil Rally School in Franconia, N.H.
and Ivor Wigham's European Rally School in Starke, Fla.
Here's what we found. |
TIM
O'NEIL RALLY SCHOOL
CURRICULUM/COST
O'Neil's curriculum focuses entirely on car control. The logistics
and strategy of rallying must be learned elsewhere. Most classes
are groups of three to five people. Individual one-on-one
instruction is available, but O'Neil feels the classroom environment
is more productive for most students.
The shortest class, which is two days long, is $1,650 (or
$1,350 in the winter), but you can keep on going all the way
to five days ($5,350 or $4,400 in the winter) if you want.
One-on-one training is also available.
LEFT-FOOT BREAKING
You could easily mistake this for the Tim O'Neil School for
Left-Foot breaking, as so much emphasis is given to the technique.
The first lesson starts over breakfast. While the students
try to cram themselves full of pancakes, O'Neil starts preaching
the 10 reasons for left-foot breaking. Turns out a properly
trained left foot can be used to turn, stop, stabilize the
car at high speeds, shorten reaction time, adjust the attitude
of a slide and help you balance the car with throttle and
brake at the same time.
O'Neil then goes on to break down the different steps of a
properly executed rally turn. It's all about weight transfer,
he explains, with a properly timed jab at the brakes putting
more weight - and more grip - on the front wheels to rotate
the car. While you can accomplish much of the same weight
transfer by simply lifting off the throttle, adding braking
gives you a far greater control. I was skeptical at first,
thinking a heavy rearward brake bias would be needed for this
technique to work, but when one of my brake lines failed at
a rally in Oregon and I was forced to finish with only one
rear brake, I was surprised to find the technique still working.
O'Neil's technique is intimidatingly complex on paper, but
after riding with an instructor trying it for yourself, it
starts to make sense. After a few days of training, driving
fast without your left foot on the brakes starts to feel scary.
Some advice: Start using your left foot on the brake a few
weeks before the school to get used to the feel. Most left
feet only know how to mash clutches; developing the finesse
to modulate the braked takes time, and requires different
muscles. My left leg was sore after three days at the school.
HAND BRAKE TURNS
With proper left-foot braking techniques, O'Neil argues, you
shouldn't ever have to use the hand brake. Hand brake turns
are listed to the curriculum for the last day of the five-day
course, but we never touched the handbrake or felt any need
to in the three days we were there.
FACILITY
O'Neil's 560-acre facility is incredible. A gravel skid pad
and wide slalom area are used to teach basic sliding techniques.
Then you get to take to the intricate network of roads to
put your new skills to work. Several miles of beautifully
maintained private roads complete with elevation changed,
blind crests. Off-camber turns and intimidating roadside trees
are the highlight of the school.
O'Neil brings the unpredictable nature of rally driving home
by having two or three students follow him at full speed through
his road network. With an intersection every few hundred feet
and no idea where he (or whoever happens to be in front of
you) will go next, you reactions have to be quick and your
car control superb. What a rush!
SEAT TIME
O'Neil's philosophy on seat time is, surprisingly, not to
get too much. When trying to master the pendulum turn, for
example, her prefers to stop you once you've done it right
a few times, take a break, and perhaps sleep on it, then do
it again later. It sounds hokey, but it works brilliantly.
The break lets the new technique sink in and become more natural.
Reinforce it the next day and suddenly it becomes instinct.
Sure, it would have been more fun to slide around for hours
and hours, but once you get tired and start making mistakes,
O'Neil insists, it takes much longer to learn. Having tried
both ways, I have to admit, he's right.
CARS
You're here to learn a skill, not to be distracted by a thrill
ride in a cool car. There's no risk of that here. O'Neil's
cars are utter crap - a fleet of tired Volkswagens, Audis
and a lone BMW 325e - but the suspensions are set up well
and their snow tires act like rally tires with less grip,
so the cars behave as they should.
Different driving techniques are necessary for different cars.
O'Neil starts with the front drivers (Golfs and Jettas), then
adjusts your technique for all-wheel-drive (two Audi 4000
Quattros) and, finally, real drive (in the BMW 325e).
You're also welcome to bring you own rally car, as several
of the students in our class did. Since my rally car was 3,000
miles away, I brought a borrowed WRX. O'Neil is a master of
front-drive techniques, so all his instruction is some variation
of how you would drive a front-wheel-drive car. "Whether
they've driven a rally car or not," O'Neil says. "Most
people seem to be born with rear-wheel-drive instincts.
Those instincts, we found will cause nothing but trouble in
the Volkswagen or the Audi Quattro, but the WRX is far closer
to a rear-drive car in its off-tarmac behavior.
O'Neil's cheap cars do have third advantages. Just like real
rally roads, there are hazards on O'Neil's school roads, and
if you happen to damage on of the cars, they're cheap to fix.
Our photographer broke a front strut on the BMW during his
training a few months earlier and it only cost him $100 to
make it right again.
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| The lane change
exercise is a common driving school test, but where most
schools have you drive toward a set of lights and follow
the one that turns green, O'Neil simply has you race down
a gravel road toward a baby stroller. Your natural baby-dodging
instincts make this a powerful exercise. |
VALUE
Charging 10/10ths up my favorite mountain road, I came face-to-face
with my biggest fear: One of those Neanderthals who thinks
driving fast means crossing the centerline on every turn.
Fully committed to a four-wheel drift, I was suddenly face
to face with a Mustang coming head-on in my lane. With a twitch
of my left foot I tighten my line, put my inside two wheels
I the dirt and squeeze past before the jackass has a chance
to pucker.
Team O'Neil Tally School: $1,650 to $5,350.
Not becoming a Mustang hood ornament: Priceless.
Rally driving techniques are intended for
unpredictable surfaces, narrow, unknown roads and sudden,
unpredictable surprises - the same stuff you have to deal
with when driving fast on the open road. Road racing techniques
based on repeating the same set of turns over and over suddenly
seem pointless.
EXTRAS
Based in chilly New Hampshire, the opportunity to learn snow
driving comes every winter.
Contact/travel info:
Team O'Neil Car Control Center
Franconia, N.H.
(603) 823-5558
www.teamoneil.com
Nearest Airport:
Boston, 2.5 hour drive
EUROPEAN RALLY SCHOOL
 CURRICLULUM/COST
Versatility is what matters most when it comes to learning
to drive rally cars. European Rally School offers courses
for all levels. Beginners can start with a one-day (eight-hour)
course with a three-to-one student/instructor ratio for $625.
Advanced one-day courses with a one-to-one student/instructor
ratio are also available in two-wheel-drive cars for $1,250.
Use a four-wheel-drive car in the one-on-one advanced class
and the price goes up to $1,950.
Two to five day one-on-one courses are also available. Prices
range from the $2,000 two-day, two-wheel-drive classes to
the $4,450 three-day, all-wheel-drive classes and beyond.
ERS' advanced-class pricing extends to almost any combination
of days or cars up to a full five-day, all-wheel-drive advance
course.
LEFT-FOOT BREAKING
With little time spent on the subject, left-foot braking quickly
becomes an issue with anyone who has practiced the technique
before coming to the European Rally School. Far more effort
(and time) is spent on lift-throttle oversteer and handbrake
turns technique.
ERS General Manager Iain Dobson maintains that left-foot braking
can't be properly taught without a dog-engaged gearbox and
because there are currently so few cars equipped with these
gearboxes in American rallying, there's little point in teaching
such a limited-application skill. ERS' stance on left-foot
braking teaches that it's good for tightening the line in
more conventional (non dogbox-equipped) rally cars, but without
proper brake-proportioning, drivers shouldn't rely on it for
serious car control.
HANDBRAKE TURNS
Proportionately large amounts of seat time are spent learning
and relearning the 180-degree handbrake turn on both tarmac
and gravel.Emphasis is placed on using the handbrake instead
of left-foot braking in almost every situation. The large
concentration on this particular facet of rallying left us
wondering if it's the most important tool in a well-rounded
rally driver's box of tricks. You'll spent lots of time getting
it just right and learning how to make it fast through corners
of varying shape.
The process is broken into the simplest order of operations
possible in the classroom and is them executed repeatedly
during the driving sessions. Skill development begins on the
tarmac skid pad (Stage One), as it's called at ERS and moves
on shortly to the gravel stages where there are numerous U-turns
to practice stringing handbrake turns into a series of other
corners. Once students have mastered a particular corner,
they're sent through it backwards for more practice .
FACILITY
With 410 acres of mixed-surface terrain, ERS is well prepared
to put students into many rally-specific situations. Four
special stages are used to graduate student from entry-level
rally driving through the advanced techniques taught in multiple-day
courses. Stage One is poor-quality tarmac surface with about
40 turns marked with paint and cones. Stage Two is 2.1 miles
of gravel surface which includes two jumps and seven hairpin
turns.  Stage
Three is a mixed-terrain, gravel/tarmac combination inside
a 3.2 mile stage with nine hairpin turns and a jump. Stage
Four is 3.5 miles of clay and sand-surfaced mayhem, which
allows higher speeds and extended seat time necessary to develop
flow behind the wheel. Stages Two, Three and Four are surrounded
by car-eating trees and/or drainage ditches to cope with the
Florida rain. The only drawback we see in this arrangement
is the fact that it's in Florida and Florida is flat. Really
flat. Rally roads usually aren't.
SEAT TIME
Perhaps the greatest strength of ERS is the large amount of
seat time drivers get during one-on-one instruction. I spent
at least six of my eight hours of school time driving. This
is standard at ERS during all one-to-one instruction days.
Beginner courses with all three-to-one ratio offer about two-hours
of seat time daily.
CARS
With a fleet including front-, rear- and all-wheel drive rally
cars, ERS is prepared to tackle the full gamut of rally driving
techniques. Handling front-drive duties are remarkable stock
Ford Foci and one front-drive Subaru Impreza. Toyota's Corolla
GT-S is on hand for rear-drive devotees. This car wasn't yet
in service during our time at ERS,but should be a near-perfect
representative of rear-drive rally cars given its popularity
in American rallying.One Toyota Celica All-Trac is available
for all-wheel-drive training and, although a bit of a pig
to drive, it force students to master the techniques being
taught. All of ERS' cars were fitted with all season or mud
and snow tires, harnesses and cages during our visit.
Afraid of rally school because you might bust up someone else's
expensive car rally car? Fear no more. For $75 per day, ERS
offers an insurance policy, which covers damage to its cars.
Of course, you can also use your own insurance or simply pay
for the damage. ERS says that if one of its cars breaks while
you're behind the wheel, it will simply move you into another
car.
VALUE
 It's
hard to argue with six hours of seat time for $1,250. I challenge
you to find that kind of cost/benefit at any road racing school.
Not to mention the fact that you're sliding around in the
dirt the entire time, which is infinitely more fun. Besides,
we've found that rally skills translate more readily to road
racing than road-racing skills do to rallying. Learn how to
slide a rally car and driving quickly on a road course suddenly
seems easy.
EXTRAS
ERS also builds, sells and rents its own rally cars. The company
supported Craig Peepers Production Class Ford Focus to a second-place
overall finish in the SCCA's ProRally National Championship
in 2001. The facility is available for corporate events and
also houses a 1,000-yard go-kart track and ATV obstacle course.
Contact/travel info:
European Rally School
Starke, Fla.
(352) 473-2999
www.gorally.com
Nearest Airport:
Gainsville, Fla.: 10 minutes
Jacksonville, Fla.: 45 minutes
Orlando, Fla.: Two hours
Students can also land directly at European Rally School's
Keystone Heights, Fla. Facility, which houses its own private
airstrip.
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