The increased speeds make many of us familiar with what the O'Neil guys refer to as 'the cheese'. The cheese is thick mud that hasn't been packed down or flung out of the way by the rally cars that went before. Most of the time, the car is hopelessly out of control once it hits the cheese. Brace for impact.
By day three, we're learning to do the one thing everyone secretly came for. They call it the pendulum turn, but I like to go around bragging that I can now do a 'Scandinavian flick'. It's the coolest thing you can do in an automobile. Look it up.
By the end of the third day, the instructors have enough faith to let us loose on a mini rally course, where all the techniques we've learned are put into play. Other than the terrain, the difference between the course and the skidpad/slalom training area is simple: the consequences. Too much speed through the narrow forest roads, particularly on the downhill sections, will almost definitely add broken humans to the broken cars equation.
More rain is met with the new challenge of rear-wheel drive on day four. A rally-prepped E30 BMW 3 Series demonstrates the increased difficulty of the layout and promptly causes an injury. No more rear-wheel drive today. The good news is that the instructors have decided to more than double the length of our rally course, despite the driving rain. As this is a spur-of-the-moment call, it means some of us are starting to get the hang of this rally stuff.
Mud flies dozens of feet in the air and streaming rain raps on the windshield with relentless abandon, but for the first time in four days, it's not slowing us down. Pitch the car sideways to shave off the speed, wish the wipers worked faster, and keep the loud pedal planted. Before day's end, many of us even have the confidence necessary to put together the double and triple pendulum turns necessary to slow the cars down for the ultra-tight left-right at the end of a long downhill section.
So, does SCC recommend the course? Hell, yes. You may think you've been to driving school before. Tim O'Neil thinks that's cute. After attending, I understand why.
The Cars
There are three types of cars at Team O'Neil. And let me just burst your bubble right off the bat-they ain't the prepped and pretty WRX STIs on the website.On the contrary, the cars are mostly old and German-Volkswagen Golfs or Jettas in the front-wheel-drive category and a couple of 'vintage' Audi Quattros you might drive on the second and third days. If you're really good, they might let you in an old 2.2-liter Subaru.
O'Neil has two good reasons for this. His philosophy comes, in large part, from Scandinavia. Many of the sport's great drivers are Finnish or Swedish and they grow up learning in utter piles of garbage. Learning in a crappy car has its advantages. If you can make an old Volkswagen succumb to your will, driving a modern WRX quickly will be a walk in the park.
In the old cars, there's a necessary emphasis on technique: you get it wrong and you crash-simple. Head instructor Chuck Long makes the point that many of today's rally racers rely heavily on the modern technology fitted to all-wheel-drive cars. On the other hand, cars like the old Quattro are a nightmare to make turn in, so excellent technique is required to overpower the will of the locked center differential. A Subaru's viscous center differential makes the car much easier to turn in, but you may find yourself lacking the skill to pull it out of a slide without the benefit of an education from an old German.
Each of the more than 15 cars has a distinct personality. Some understeer enough to prompt a tug of the parking brake. Others require instinctive oversteer correction that will make driving a Porsche 911 fast seem like child's play. Speaking of fast, a few of the old cars are just that, with short gears and fresh Bilstein shocks. The remainder are exactly what you'd expect from 20-year-old Volkswagens that have been jumping over dirt roads for a couple of years. Every car is fitted with real-deal rally tires, some in better shape than others. This plays a major role in each car's handling characteristics-several are dogs, others are tack-sharp.
A few have racing seats, but the coolest set-up is the mid-mounted rear seat in some, which allows a ringside view of the instructor's feet. According to the O'Neil crew, no matter how prepped the cars are, they last a maximum of four years. Which is a lot, considering the abuse they take.
Oh, and that last reason for the shitboxes? They're cheaper to fix when students break them. Instructors joke that Team O'Neil has bought all the old Volkswagens and Quattros in a 50-mile radius. When I start to laugh, they continue to eye me. Actually, they really have bought them all.
By James Tate
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