SS1: The Start

I've scheduled a class with Team O'neil racing school. March 20th will be an exciting day for me, I'll learn to rally. And so begins my rally racing career.

For most who know me they know my obsessive behaviors, not obsessive in the creepy way but obsessive in the "I cannot stop thinking of it and I must get good at it" way. This can be seen in many of my endeavors: my Fixie (see Deets'), Muay Thai, Lacrosse, driving and of course with video games. How is this different? Because I've been obsessed with Rally Racing from before I started playing Lacrosse, knew what Muay Thai was or even dreamed of riding my fixie. I'm pretty sure I was into rally racing before I could drive. So why now? Because now I can. I am only a man of 20 right now, and I have my first source of real income (yes I am still in school too) so I can. Considering that rally school is thousands of dollars, hell I could buy a really cheap car for the price of two days of schooling, it doesn't come easily to a kid of 16-18.

What's so awesome about rally racing? First off, competitions are held with street legal, crazy reliable cars that are powered on pump fuel. These cars are no daily driver (we can dream though) but they are reliable enough to be one. Secondly, in some forms of rally racing the driver has never seen the road (s)he is racing on. Also, there is always a passenger. This passenger doesn't just sit idly or ask "are we there yet?", they are called a Co-Driver. They are just important to keep the car going fast over special stages as the driver is. The Co-Driver, aka navigator, tells the driver what the next few turns are and how to take them. Sometimes the Co-Driver even drives the car on the transit stages. Oh what's a transit stage? I hope you could guess that a special stage was the all-out race against the clock stage, but the transit stage is, as the name implies, a transit to the next special stage. Special stages take place on closed roads lined by spectators while Transit stages take place on open-public roads where the racers must obey traffic laws and arrive at the next special stage at a certain time. Many club held road rallies are just longer forms of a transit stage (often more complex too). Even a 1993 Chevy Minivan can compete and win a road rally of transit stages only. You can't win a special stage based rally without knowing how to complete transit stages correctly. The best thing about rally racing is that it happens on real roads. Real roads with production based cars somehow makes for the most exciting form of racing.

So I'll use this tool (blogspot) as a way to let friends see my progress with my dream. I'll use it to expedite other's dream of rally racing as they will be more informed by what has worked for me. I'll also use it to brag, cause I'm a bit of a showoff.