Reminder: You can find the complete collection of photos here.
Wow - what a day. A couple of years ago I saw a special on TV about a rally school in the Perth hills run by Tolley Challis (who competes in the state (and other) rally championships). And to top it all off, the cars they use are Galant VR4'si (which is what I drive). So, this was a cool thing to do.As it happened, I never got around to booking it but I ended up getting it as a birthday present this year. Sunday was the day that was booked so up to Bakers Hill I went. BTW - there is a great little bakery in Bakers Hill (well, obviously - right?) so if you drive through there, make sure you stop off and sample the wares.
Tolley picked up the nine participants from our meeting point in town and led us out to the property where everything is run. Some people brought along spectators along with them so there were about 20 people in all. Once there we signed all the appropriate disclaimer forms and got underway.
First, Tolley sat down with the drivers for the day and explained what we'd be doing. In the morning we would practise some basic driving techniques - emergency stops, handbrake turns and throttle control. In the afternoon we'd do some laps of a short course he'd laid out and put the morning's work to good use.
After hearing about how to do it all in theory we put on our racing suits and helmets and jumped into the cars and did what we were told.
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Both cars are JDM models with performance mods such as RalliArt chips and larger exhausts. The silver car still has most of its interior but has had a roll cage and trip computer added. The white car, however is a RS model with a totally stripped interior and has been used in the past as a race car. Consequently, it has a bit more oomph but on the day the silver car had slightly newer (grippier) tyres.
The drivers were divided up into groups and assigned to cars. I got to drive the silver car all day so it was pretty much what I was used to, except for wearing a helmet and contending with being very close to the roll cage. The sacrifices we have to make. :-)
For each exercise in the morning, we were talked through it and shown what we needed to do by our instructors. Sitting in the passenger seat on all our runs were guys from the WesTec rally team. They gave lots of guidance with a huge amount of patience and their experience really showed. Thanks, Matt!
If I'd had a video camera, this would look much better, but here are some stills from the emergency braking exercise
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Next were our handbrake turns. These proved quite a bit more difficult to master than the braking because were weren't allowed just to spin the steering wheel around with one hand - we had to do it properly.
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After this we did the same course as the handbrake turns but with throttle control. I didn't get any photos of this as the dust was just amazing. Plus, it looked just the same with a still camera.
A very generous lunch followed and more spectators (including some that had come to watch me) turned up. Then, we got to put our newly learned skills into practice.
We took three practice runs around a course - first a slow lap and then two faster ones. Once everyone had a go, we did three timed laps. Our times were a total of the three laps, with a 50 second lap being considered good. I managed to beat off the other contenders but not by much - the next person back was only half a second away after three laps so it was very close.
At the end of the day, each of the drivers got to take a fast (and I mean fast) lap with Tolley driving the white car. Spectators could also go along for $30. It was a great ride. The following photos are from others doing the ride.
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This was a great present and a fantastic day. If you're in Perth and interested in rally then this is the thing to do. Call Westec and book ahead of time...
