Paula Gibeault

Marc,

Check out www.californiarallyseries.com on July 1, when the entry forms and flyers for the next two rally schools will be posted. The one in Ridgecrest (about 3 hours north of Los Angeles) is Sept. 13 with a RallyCross on Sunday Sept. 14, and the Northern California school is Saturday, Sept. 27 with a RallyCross the next day (Willows, California and Thunderhill Raceway). Hopefully you can attend - they're really cheap (less than $100 and include lunch and dinner) intense all day courses with hands-on practice for drivers or co-drivers. The co-drivers don't even need a car! Bring your street car for the RallyCross the next day as well, at either school - $25 or $30 entry fee for a lot of fun.

nosdakota

Does anyone have any info on any rally-x or rally driving schools in the Pennsylvania area? I'd love to get started but I'm having trouble finding anything in my area.
Thanks

Tifosi77

After reading a few responses let me chime in and give you some very very sound advice. Buy a Prepped car I cannot tell you how important this is because you then have a log book which is imperative. You will probably need to spend a good chunk of change on whatever car you buy because it will need different small repairs and perhaps have enough problems to really drain your budget, whatever cars people are selling there is always a reason if it is so great then why are they selling it? Try to purchase a car that has never been rolled. All of this being said I wiould tell you to not purchase a car but instead to co-drive first and learn the most important skill which is event management. From start to finish this is onw of the most difficult things to do and learning to co-drive first will help you understand what is going on better. Now you will completely ignore this last piece of advice so back to the car. Purchase a proven rally car my vote would be to purchase a golf if you are going to get a FWD or a RX7 for RWD or toyota starlet but those are a bit difficult to obtain. IT is real important to buy a prepped car because building a car takes a lot of time and a lot of $$$$ trust me on this one (our Group N car is still only about 75% finished). Next, sorry to burst the bubble of many different people on this board and the SCCA but completely Skip Rally X, I repeat SKIP RALLY X it is a totally useless exercise and it may be fun but it does not really teach you much for real rally. Better to find a real road (you said that you were interested in CRS) in your area there are tons of roads that are appropriate and learn how to drive on a stage since you rarely are out of 2nd gear on a rally x course so the conditions are not similar (European RallyX is totally different then the USA so that is why European Rally X has produced some good drivers Petter Solberg notably). Once you have your car and you have done a bit of work on the car get a co-driver, one with experience (not your buddy) because you will be stressed out enough during your first rally. With an experienced co-driver you can focus on driving and how he/she runs the event and the service crew you will thank me for this advice later. Next practice a few times and learn the car inside and out, this will help you direct yor crew to problem areas. Now you are ready for your first rally, enjoy it and remember you just want to finish so you can move out of seed 8 and then you can use notes which will make you faster. After your first event you will have learned a tremendous amount of info that you can apply to your next rally.

Now whatever you do do not do the following. Do not attempt to build your first car from scratch you will spend twice as much and the build will take forever. Do not be lured into the temptation to get into an AWD car right off the Bat, 2wd will teach you hings that will enable you to be faster when you move to AWD. Do not be seduced by HP or turbocharging since HP means that more parts break and turbocharging means that there is more tuning required and another part to fail. Lastly no matter how well you do Dave Richards is not going to helicopter in at the end of the stage to hand you a WRX drive so take it easy, have fun, and be safe.

Good resources are:
Specialstage.com
Rallyclassified.com
Rallycodriver.co.uk

Good luck

marc_mun

First of all thankz everyone for all of their responses I really apreciate it! I know now to get myself a pre-made rally car which does make sense. Well thank you all, and RALLY ON!

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