Dirt gets everywhere. It fills the inside of your car, working its way into the carpet, the seats, piling up in the ventilation system. It waits patiently for you to clean the interior before blowing out all over your seats and carpet again.
It gets in your hair, under your clothes, into your skin so deeply, you look tan. Then it turns to mud when you finally find time to shower. It gets in your very soul, exciting you, distracting you, warping your judgment. Dirt draws you back to it again and again, despite consequences no sane person would endure.
Case in point: Laughlin, Nev., December 2001. I crashed my rally car. I threw away the CRS Championship only three miles from the end of the last stage of the season. I broke a lot of parts. I bent things I had forsaken sleep to build. I had to run around in howling wind, blowing snow, and pitch darkness to drag the broken hulk off the edge of the Grand Canyon. (link to Laughlin 2001 story)
The very next day, without pause for reflection, without adding up the expense, the mental wear and tear, the missed social opportunities, without reconsidering this unhealthy obsession with dirt, I immediately began planning a new rally car. Not repair for the fast, relatively reliable beater I had spent two years building. No. A brand-new rally car.
There is a psychological term for this kind of behavior. Addiction medicine specialists often refer to it as stupidity.
Learn from my mistake. Turn away. Don't read this. Don't read about why I chose an SE-R Spec-V. Don't read about what it takes to make a brand-new car into a rally machine. Don't follow along on my misadventures in the dirt. This is serious business. You have been warned.
Don't read about the car:
Picking a class and a car Suspension Engine Brakes Safety Equipment Lights
Damage toll. Everything we broke, and why.
Don't read about the competition:
Rim of the World, 2002 Gorman Ridge, 2002