Re: Becoming a Rally Driver by Chris B 15 Apr 03 00:27 AM Team M? Wow, you have to tell me the gossip! You seem to have loads of news and you have my e-mail! Are you coming to Deutschland this year? OK, how to get started? I think there are two main issues: 1) First of all you need contacts, friends that know what is going on and are prepared to give you a guiding hand. To find these is so valuable, money couldn\x{2019}t pay for it! Going by my own first excursions, it was unbelievably hard to find people that understand and like rallying enough to service for you and at the same time are prepared to work for no money on your car rather than watch the rally, or as it happened often to me even let you down with little or no notice. Indeed, before I found my heroes Gordon Jarvis, Alex Burns & (navigator) Gavin Stewart, the car preparation and the preparation for an event was more stress than the rallies itself! I really hated the build up to a rally! After I found them, the preparation was even fun with loads of nice, valuable tips and ideas as a bonus \x{2013} they really made a massive difference to me! To meet these people & friends, go and visit your nearest motorclub. Ironically in my case the local motorclub was useless, I met Gordon, Alex & Gavin in the UK Peugeot Cup. But still, a local motorclub is most likely the best place to find likeminded friends with experience and good contacts. 2) The choice of car is important. This was my main mistake to destroy my career. After some amazing karting successes I thought I am going to hit the scene big style, put all my savings into an N4 Subaru, only to find the car was difficult to drive at the limit, it was very unreliable and above all parts were extremely expensive and hard to find (in decent quality). On the stages I ended up thinking: \x{201C}what is to break next that I can\x{2019}t afford\x{201D} and despite a few promising stage times at first, instead of improving event by event my confidence became less with every rally I did! The lesson I learned (the hard way and too late): Remember that you not only have to buy a car but running it costs money as well! It is essential to start with a car that isn\x{2019}t exactly rare, nor expensive, nor complicated and best find a car you can buy the parts for at the butchers round the corner. I am not going to be biased and say you have to start with a Peugeot, but absolutely the best way by far is to look at a car manufacturer who runs a popular one-makes series! It may be a Citroen Saxo or a Ford Ka. Point is: a) Manufacturers that run a one-makes series show interest in amateur rally drivers and are the most likely ones to support an amateur. May this only be with a selection of discounted, specialised motorsport parts designed and made by this manufacturer itself, this already is a help of massive value. b) You find loads of people rallying these cars. Even if you have to go and visit a round of their one-makes series, you will always find people that can tell you about set ups, parts and driving styles you should try, because these guys & gals rally the same car and they are willing to help, because they are amateur rally drivers, like you! They know and understand your situation! c) In the case of Peugeot\x{2019}s one-makes series, they even give you \x{201C}Training Days\x{201D}: rally driving tuition, pace notes, maps, first aid, fitness, car preparation, press, it just can\x{2019}t get any better than this. Indeed, the ideal career I would today say is: start off with a popular, cheap to run car in autotests and road rallies to get a taste of competition. If you can cope, find confidence and enjoy it, I would already start looking at actually competing in a one-makes series. You can attract the attention and assistance of the manufacturer and their sponsorship partners. From here you could take on a 4x4 turbo, may it be group N and national rallies, if your target is to drive a WRCar one day, this is the right direction to learn 4x4 turbo driving and eventually to prove you can drive 4x4 turbo. Don\x{2019}t bother with S1600 and the proposed (if it comes) RRCar classes, they are expensive for very little return. Let me give you examples, that this should be a good way: Richard Burns, Francois Delecour, Gilles Panizzi & now Cedric Robert all came from the Peugeot Cup, Sébastien Loeb came from the Citroen Cup, all got support until international recognition by the very manufacturers that run the according one-makes series. Virtually all the rest impressed with 4x4 turbo cars in national championships \x{2013} or at least cars at close to WRC standards at the according time, if it was Didier Auriol or Carlos Sainz in Sierra Cosworth\x{2019}s or Markko Märtin or Petter Solberg in A8 Toyotas\x{2026}. As i.e. Marcus Grönholm doing Finnish rallies in an A8 Toyota, then got Toyota support for selected WRC events, Peugeot picked him up and he became WRChampion. Or Francois Duval, hardly a driving licence he was competing in the Belgian Citroen Saxo Cup, from here \x{2013} wherever he had the money from \x{2013} he bought an outdated A8 Toyota Celica and was so convincing with it that team bosses travelled to see this guy\x{2019}s driving! See also page 2 of the \x{201C}Seat - back in 2004\x{201D} threat, where in one of my posts talking Belgian Championship I give more details about Duval\x{2019}s discovery. Hope this helped. OK, I didn\x{2019}t get anywhere myself, but I know what mistakes I did, so even if it is too late for me, somebody else might learn from it to avoid learning it the hard way.