Dodge SRT4 - Hard Lessons In Warp Drive - Rally

"Right six over crest, 70, turn left two plus, spectators." Those words, short and succinct as they are, contain all the information I need to keep the SRT-4 on the road. But they don't matter this time. Somewhere in the melee of flailing hands and feet that follows, I get confused. Or simply run out of talent. Whatever the case, nowhere in the deep, dark depths of my rallying soul do I find the wherewithal to gather it up and point the car straight down the road. Instead, I punt the fastest two-wheel-drive rally car in the country off the road. Backwards.

As reality sinks in, it becomes obvious that this spectacle of stupidity doesn't matter. The car seems intact. Coleman is screaming to drive it out of the ditch and those spectators, well, they're loving it. I hear their disturbingly delighted cries before the car comes to rest. So I drive. It takes 30 or 40 painful seconds of sawing at the wheel to get out of the ditch and we're again on our way-the luckiest team in the 2003 Lake Superior ProRally.

There's no better way to gauge how far one's driving skill has tanked than to be thrown into the series' oldest, meanest and toughest rally. This trial-by-fire came courtesy Dodge Engineer Pete Gladysz, who extended the invitation to drive Dodge's SRT-4 factory car-a Group 5 (Two-Wheel-Drive Open) Class monster. By August of last year, this car was well on its way to carrying Gladysz and driver Doug Shepherd to the Group 5 title, Manufacturer's Championship and Woodner Cup-the highest honor in two-wheel-drive rallying in America.

Which is all to say that putting a rusty driver like myself behind the wheel of an otherwise very capable rally car is, well, not the smartest thing they could do. After a year spent trying to forget about rallying, I'd be better off behind the wheel of a John Deere tractor than a rip-snortin' SRT-4 rally car. And with engineering editor Coleman calling the notes, a job he likes even less than I do, they were asking for a disaster of massive proportions. But they did it anyway.

Shepherd and Gladysz have a newer, lighter and slightly upgraded SRT-4 for the event. And it's obvious they plan to stick it to the rest of the field with the updated machine. So it's safe to assume they figure Coleman and I aren't a big risk. They're right.

Lake Superior follows a two-day format with 97 stage miles on Friday night-90 of which are run after dark on roads that are among the fastest in the nine-round series. Saturday resumes with 37 more miles during the day over slightly slower gravel roads and one tarmac stage-Brockway Mountain. Do the math on this formula and you'll quickly realize that since two-thirds of the rally's miles are run in pitch black, one must be comfortable driving at night to do well here. It has been about 14 months since I've driven a rally car at all and even longer since I've driven one at night. This doesn't seem to concern anyone on the Mopar crew, including Shepherd or Gladysz as much as it does Coleman and me.