Any rallycrossers go to rally school?

It's 2021 and I'm looking at different ideas to get out of the house. I've been rallycrossing for 2 seasons, and really enjoy it. I'm not sure I'm super competitive, but obviously I enjoy getting better as I gain skills and experience. 

Does a casual rallycrosser have a lot to gain from a school like this that will actually transfer to the local club level? Sure, I know any sort of education like this will helpful...but I guess I'm wondering if it's really geared more towards stage rally and not really worth the time and money, other than just having fun. 

One idea I'm entertaining is doing a 2 day rally school at either Team O'Neil or Rally Ready. I drive a fwd, so I like there seems to be an emphasis on fwd for the 1-2 courses at Team O'Neil, but I'm sure Rally Ready has plenty of fwd too. 

Anyone do this before? 

I haven't, but have considered doing the same.  I've rallycrossed FWD most of the time so far.  I know a lot of the skills won't translate over to the lower speeds rallycross runs at, but some of them should.  I'm switching to a rear engine car this year, though, so if I go to rally school, it'll probably be more for fun.

I did a school before my first rallycross.  Now, I am not sure if I would do another one.  I would get better but $1500 a day is steep.  I poked around in 2018 and found some information.

Look at the curriculum.  Do you want to spend hours on left foot braking?  How long is the hand brake turn section of the course?  On the longer courses, how much time is spent going over course notes at high speed?

I would be pretty interested in the left foot braking side of things bit the rest of it isn't necessary for me in rallycross. 

For what it is worth, rally ready was the most willing to setup a custom curriculum for me.  The first hour or two was set in stone but I could help guide the course afterwards.  On the other hand, Team O'neil wanted thousands of dollars to do the same thing.  I haven't checked with dirt fish.

I'm not sure that anything would transfer over to rallycross.  Stage rally is about as relevant to rallycross as road racing is to autocross, except rallycross is about 500x more fun than autocross.

15+ years ago WDCR used to have a rallycross school. With 4-6 stations and drills. It was actually quite solid. 

Honestly I would reach out to the powers that be about having WDCR and Tarheel join together to host a school either at VIR or Panthera. 

ojannen said:

I did a school before my first rallycross.  Now, I am not sure if I would do another one.  I would get better but $1500 a day is steep.  I poked around in 2018 and found some information.

Look at the curriculum.  Do you want to spend hours on left foot braking?  How long is the hand brake turn section of the course?  On the longer courses, how much time is spent going over course notes at high speed?

I would be pretty interested in the left foot braking side of things bit the rest of it isn't necessary for me in rallycross. 

For what it is worth, rally ready was the most willing to setup a custom curriculum for me.  The first hour or two was set in stone but I could help guide the course afterwards.  On the other hand, Team O'neil wanted thousands of dollars to do the same thing.  I haven't checked with dirt fish.

Excellent point. The detail on the agendas can be a little bit vauge. I thought left foot braking and the concepts behind managing weight transfer would translate well to Rallycross, but more detail would be good. It's interesting the Rally Ready was willing to work with you a little on customizing the curriculum. I was looking at possibly two day events and they cost the same at both facilities. 

captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

15+ years ago WDCR used to have a rallycross school. With 4-6 stations and drills. It was actually quite solid. 

Honestly I would reach out to the powers that be about having WDCR and Tarheel join together to host a school either at VIR or Panthera. 

I run with the DC and Susquehanna club. My first season Susquehanna ran a RX school which was a great introduction. It would be interesting to ask the folks at DC if they would considering trying something like this again. 

I did a school at the FIRM a few years back, and found it helped a good bit with RallyX. 

HopmanJones said:

captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

15+ years ago WDCR used to have a rallycross school. With 4-6 stations and drills. It was actually quite solid. 

Honestly I would reach out to the powers that be about having WDCR and Tarheel join together to host a school either at VIR or Panthera. 

I run with the DC and Susquehanna club. My first season Susquehanna ran a RX school which was a great introduction. It would be interesting to ask the folks at DC if they would considering trying something like this again. 

we used to have the "rallycross school" the same day as our early-season test and tune. That said, I think over the years most of our attendees have stated a preference to have a points/competition event instead of the test and tune, so we haven't had a T&T for several years now.. Once that happened, the driver's school kind of sputtered out since it would have to be a standalone thing and usually we didn't have real large numbers at it.

Everything I learnt I learnt on back roads with a dodge neon and a buddy with a 4x4 and a tow strap. 

I know Dave at Rally Ready is willing to tailor his program to what you want to learn. I've never actually paid to take one of his courses because he's a friend of mine and I've done in car instruction on corporate days and been out there during other school days. I've spent several hours off to the side just teaching people how to drive a standard so that they can jump back in to the other exercises with the rest of their company. I've seen people drive the slalom for 2 straight hours until they got it right. It's a neat place. 

If you want to spend 8 hours working on LFB in a FWD car on the figure 8 and slalom courses, he'll probably be able to accommodate that, keeping in mind that it's always cheaper for 6 guys to follow the same curriculum than to have a day or two built around just you. 

Any of the rally schools are special places. You go for the experience and the people and the fun. If you just want to drive a car in a field for a whole day of practice you can probably  get 3-4 guys together and rent your facility for cheaper than all of you going to school. If you want to drive someone else's car (that you don't have to worry about breaking or consumables) someplace you don't usually go and you can turn it into a day or two on part of a trip where you see a different part of the country and meet new friends, then it's worth it. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

I know Dave at Rally Ready is willing to tailor his program to what you want to learn. I've never actually paid to take one of his courses because he's a friend of mine and I've done in car instruction on corporate days and been out there during other school days. I've spent several hours off to the side just teaching people how to drive a standard so that they can jump back in to the other exercises with the rest of their company. I've seen people drive the slalom for 2 straight hours until they got it right. It's a neat place. 

If you want to spend 8 hours working on LFB in a FWD car on the figure 8 and slalom courses, he'll probably be able to accommodate that, keeping in mind that it's always cheaper for 6 guys to follow the same curriculum than to have a day or two built around just you. 

Any of the rally schools are special places. You go for the experience and the people and the fun. If you just want to drive a car in a field for a whole day of practice you can probably  get 3-4 guys together and rent your facility for cheaper than all of you going to school. If you want to drive someone else's car (that you don't have to worry about breaking or consumables) someplace you don't usually go and you can turn it into a day or two on part of a trip where you see a different part of the country and meet new friends, then it's worth it. 

Great feedback - thanks. If I do it, I was originally leaning towards Team O Neil because I love spending time in New England and of course they have built quite a name for themselves. That said, the more I look at it, the more I was wondering if it would be 100% time well spent because it looks like they go over other things like roadside repairs, protecting the car, and some intro level stuff into licensing. None of that matters to me, I've already broken and fixed my rallycross car enough and I don't care about licenses - I'd rather spend that time in the car.

Rally Ready seems willing to tailor the experience to the person's needs rather than sticking to a strict agenda. I have one rallycross friend that is interested to do a school with me, so there would be at least two of us there with some of the same experiences and interests.

I sent RR an email last night with some questions. Also, there was also a guy I know that came to a couple DC rallycrosses with a stage rally Protege who recently moved to TX, and I know his car is at the Ranch and he offered to let me drive it if we made our way down there. I need to get in touch with him to see what the deal is with that car and what his thoughts would be on the experience.

I've looked into the Austin rally project myself but am not convinced.  There is a big up charge to be a student in an AWD Impreza which is what I drive.....  I don't really want FWD or Caprice wheel time.  The best thing I've done so far is ride the fast guys as driver and passenger and have them drive my car.  

I did the full day class at Dirtfish a few years back, awd version.  I don't RX locally up here in Seattle, but I have AX quite a bit in the past. The cars ran fully locked center diffs, so that aspect was really interesting from a learning perspective and how they handled off throttle transitions. It was really educational to me in terms of driving fast on the dirt. We didn't get into things like pace notes, it was more about maneuvering in dirt/gravel.  We had slalom sections, high and low speed, and short courses that would be much like RX I assume. (I'm in the center in the picture below). Also, it was fantastic, and a ton of fun!

The only thing that I hang up on is how much is rally school focused on car control and hearing notes, which are kind of minor things in rallycross vs. course reading/developing a minimum-time line strategy and adapting that to changing conditions as runs progress.  Even if the cones do not get moved your first run may have a wildly different course to your last one and you need to be able to react and predict and be what I think of as cautiously aggressive to exploit that.

I went to rally school but it was in vain because I learned better independently, or maybe the problem was in the teacher who was training me.

In reply to HopmanJones :

I guess it depends on how you approach it to me. I started autocrossing and then added in some track days and ice racing. All of those events built different skills and habits. Eventually, I wanted to go road racing and took the Skip Barber course for my license. It did hit a bunch of basics but what I got most from the school was feedback:

• "Your doing good with your head looking far in front of you into and out of the corners"
• "Your braking is extremely late and good but may unsettle an ITA car when you come off the brakes so fast"
• "Your too smooth with the steering, it is ok to be a little more aggressive with turn-in" 

If you approach it with an open dialog with the teachers about improving your behaviors and skills, any school can help. For example learning pace notes and driving the course they refer to can be adapted to learning a new rallycross course alone.

I ended up moving on from my road racing efforts and doing some rallycross for two years and did very well. My skip barber training was a part of my whole growth to do well in rallycross. 

HopmanJones said:

ojannen said:

I did a school before my first rallycross.  Now, I am not sure if I would do another one.  I would get better but $1500 a day is steep.  I poked around in 2018 and found some information.

Look at the curriculum.  Do you want to spend hours on left foot braking?  How long is the hand brake turn section of the course?  On the longer courses, how much time is spent going over course notes at high speed?

I would be pretty interested in the left foot braking side of things bit the rest of it isn't necessary for me in rallycross. 

For what it is worth, rally ready was the most willing to setup a custom curriculum for me.  The first hour or two was set in stone but I could help guide the course afterwards.  On the other hand, Team O'neil wanted thousands of dollars to do the same thing.  I haven't checked with dirt fish.

Excellent point. The detail on the agendas can be a little bit vauge. I thought left foot braking and the concepts behind managing weight transfer would translate well to Rallycross, but more detail would be good. It's interesting the Rally Ready was willing to work with you a little on customizing the curriculum. I was looking at possibly two day events and they cost the same at both facilities. 

Really depends on your driving style and car. Ive rally crossed forever a decade, won WDCR region three or four times as well as an East Coast championship. I don't think I've ever left foot braked in rallycross and I hardly ever do it in stage rally either (not that I'm particularly fast in stage rally). For 1500 bucks plus travel expenses you could do a lot of rally crosses and get a lot of suit time to practice on different surfaces and stuff. Especially at DC's giant course at Panthera.

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Preach.

IME you simply do not have time for fancy weight transfer management in rallycross, the speeds are too low.  If you use the brakes to any significant degree you have already thrown the run away.

(Note: the RXR has language to the effect that courses may not have sharp corners after high speed sections, which in effect means there are no braking zones...)

Panthera sounds fun, I should head out there sometime 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Preach.

 

IME you simply do not have time for fancy weight transfer management in rallycross, the speeds are too low.  If you use the brakes to any significant degree you have already thrown the run away.

(Note: the RXR has language to the effect that courses may not have sharp corners after high speed sections, which in effect means there are no braking zones...)

 

Panthera sounds fun, I should head out there sometime 

You may change your mind on this points this weekend. Panthera definitely requires a good bit of prudent brake usage, else you will find yourself rolling down a hillside lol.  Panthera is literally the opposite of any of the venues you guys run in Ohio in terms of course, speed, elevation, and surface...... And the fact that there are a dozen 6 cylinder BMWs in your class :D

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Opie's Farm and Joe's Speedway are/were on hills.  Opie's was fun because the way the trees were laid out, the only way to go uphill or downhill was straight.  Evan brought his radar gun to one event, clocked me at 55mph...

Good times.  Should note that according to my Garmin, 9500 in 2nd is about 45mph.  And I did not use 3rd at Opie's.

Bitzer's Farm also was 100% elevation change on the backyard, the courses inevitably were a long sweeping downhill left into a series of esses up the wrinkles.  Also good times.  Lots of memories of things like ZB running his STI on the rev limiter at the bottom half of the hill, sideways to be pointed up the turnaround at the bottom...

The hilly "short course" sites (Opie's, Roos', Joe's) and the wide open courses we used to enjoy at NTR are most of why I and a few other locals decided that power is very very good to have 

But point is, I never thought about trail braking to turn in to whatever.  Just which line made for the lowest time.  Usually your turn in was mostly affected by your attitude coming from the last corner.

At NTX rallycross in the fastest corner (50-58 mph depending on route that day), I will use the brakes to shift the weight bias forward causing the rear end to rotate quickly.  I try and do it with minimal steering input.  Too much input and bad things can occur.  If I do it really wrong, tank slapper or run over a marker.  When it's done right, it's a thing of beauty.  I think AAZCD-Jon has been a passenger when I did it really well and gotten it pretty wrong.  It's a fine line, but on our courses there are some braking zones and some are pretty big stops from relatively high speeds.  Power might help but on the surface at NTX grip is king.  The real key to good times is not to kill momentum too much especially in a 155 hp Subaru.  I may be trying it again soon without about twice the power.  I'm also looking into events in AL since I now live much further east.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Note to self: pack radar gun in van just incase.

In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :

Perversely, a steering quickener helps one keep steering inputs to a minimum, since it allows you to make rapid minor corrections before you find yourself needing to make a major one.

Keeping momentum by minimizing speed loss makes driving low powered cars fun, especially with a good co driver.  One such driver and I managed to wheel a 2.5i wagon around a high speed course very effectively, just focus on minimizing how much momentum you lose since it is so hard to get it back.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I agree.  I have an STI rack that I was going to install but it appears I'm selling my RS and getting something more hardcore.