LOVE OF RALLYING

By Olga Orisek

It is with certain nostalgia that I am now returning back to an article first written at the beginning of my career as a co-driver. Since that time I have savored a victory, endured a defeat, found myself upside down in a creek, drove a service truck, lost my voice just before a rally, and saw my rally car burn down to the ground.

My love for cars was instilled in me since my early years by my father, an engineer, and even though we even did not own a car after the Communist putsch in Czechoslovakia, we always talked about cars and kept the interest alive. Marrying another car enthusiast was just a natural continuation of the trend, this time enriched by spending long hours under the car and eating meals on knees as the dining table was occupied by the engine. Little did I know that I would end up as a co-driver in the SCCA PRO Rally National Championship Series, winning the Northeast Division in the four-wheel-drive open class for the year 1994!

It has all started innocently enough - we became members of a car club and soon we participated in club time trials on a nearby racetrack. At that time, my assignment was to stand near the finish line and time each lap. As a former Czechoslovak national champion in downhill skiing, I like speed and was not satisfied with my role of a timekeeper. My husband Ivan spent two seasons rallying in Europe before I met him. He used to describe the thrills of rallying in glowing phrases. So, one day I asked him why we did not try rallying again together. His remark was: "You do not know what you are getting into". He was right.

My training started by reading appropriate literature - what the heck is "a cute right at delta tee" and "truncated seconds are not a cumulative deal"? Then we went to watch a pro rally and took a licensing course. Equipped with national racing licenses we attached ourselves to the whole rallying circus. I liked my new fireproof nomex driving suit, but at first, I did not like my full-face helmet. The nature provided me with a rather protruding nose and the first attempt to put the helmet on destroyed the microphone - it had to be reattached on the side instead in front of my mouth.

Of course the car has to have a roll-cage, racing seats, 6-point seat belts, and six auxiliary lights. The car also has full instrumentation on the co-driver's side, turbocharger boost controls, and a trip meter for measuring interval distance and cumulative distance, a stopwatch, and many other safety gadgets according to the official rulebook. All safety items are strictly scrutinized by the officials before each race and believe me, they are very important. Even though this is not common, on that very first rally we went to watch, a driver was killed in a violent crash.

Pro rallies are conducted on forest roads, logging roads, mountain roads and the like. They consist of special stages (the cars start at one minute intervals and you go as fast as you can on a narrow road closed to other traffic) and transit stages that lead you to another special stage. These events are anything between 200 and 600 miles long (the longest one is The Press On Regardless Rally in Michigan), with ten to twenty eight special stages of various lengths (the longest special stage in the USA is part of the Maine Forest Rally – it is 25 miles long).

From reading the rulebook it became clear that my function is not just sit next to the driver and do nothing (I heard one driver claiming that a co-driver is only "a sack of potatoes", while the other proclaimed "I don't really need a co-driver"). I found the hard way all the "delicacies of the co-driver's craft", as teacher's genes completely avoided Ivan (all his ancestors were teachers). My idealistic approach to rallying as a way to deepen the relationship was quickly shattered when I was strictly assigned, as exclusively mine, the whole slew of responsibilities - including pushing the car out of the ditch. I remember our first flat tire during the very first rally we entered. Even though we trained "in our minds" the division of the tasks - for my part run 30 yards back with the triangle, run back to unscrew the lug nuts (his majesty the driver cannot touch hot lug nuts so he would not burn his hands), help to put the spare on, screw on the lug nuts, run back for the triangle - it really did not work exactly that way and I was to blame. We forgot to unplug the intercom and it worked like a bungee cord. I could not stop laughing and got myself into trouble because it looked like Ivan in his state of mind would simply leave me there if I did not jump back into the car quickly enough.

I do not remember having any fear. Actually, I enjoyed flying on bumpy, narrow, sandy, muddy, or snow and ice covered roads, frequently at night, being tossed and jostled tightly strapped into my seat; but many times I wondered about the rollover - how do you get down from the upside down position when you release your seat belts - do you simply crash down on your head?

At the start of the Special Stage, an official counts down the last ten seconds while the driver engages the first gear holding the clutch and raises the engine revolutions to 6,000 per minute. On the word go, the four-wheel-drive turbocharged car with 300 horsepower charges out like a rocket. You immediately begin reading: point six to right five onto side road - danger - over the crest - (at this point you have to check the oil pressure and temperature, water temperature, turbo boost gauge and back to looking at the trip meter and reading) - point three to right five onto side road (check the gauges) - point fifteen right five onto side road - danger - over the crest (check the gauges) and when the trip meter shows you are 0.05 mile from the turn - right five, right five, right five, right five, right five - at this moment the driver sometimes does not make the turn right onto the side road and you end up going backwards (press the button to zero the trip meter, check the gauges and start with the next instruction).

After every second or third special stage, there is an allotted amount of time to service the vehicles. At that time the co-driver is supposed to be the manager of the service crew while the driver has a tendency to wander off to swap stories about the last stage with other drivers. To find him, feed him and get him back behind the wheel in time is another task.

A year ago I wrote the following conclusion:

There are basic prerequisites - just to mention a few - for becoming a co-driver:

Forget the manicure as your hands will be constantly smeared with grease, mud, and everything else.

Do not suffer from motion sickness (even some drivers do, and believe me, it is a problem).

Enjoy speed.

Be ready to disregard excited non-publishable comments from the driver if you call an acute right turn when it is in reality an acute left and you end up in the woods chopping trees left and right (in my case my loving husband was shouting at me "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you" while I was answering "Are you sure, are you sure, are you sure?" over the intercom).

Be brave enough to coach your driver when you think that he is driving a special stage too slow or too fast for his ability and road conditions or is about to lock the brakes and jump off the road into a ditch or off a cliff (recently, I graduated to this sort of answer: "Yes, ma'm").

Be ready to commiserate in good fun with other co-drivers (mostly men): "I asked him, I begged him to go faster, but he would not go!" while drivers claim "We don't need no stinking co-drivers".

Do not be upset when you spot your name in your neighbor's newspaper on a commuter train (I forgot my good manners of not reading over the shoulder, but as I did not have my glasses, I could read only the headline anyway).

And now, a year older, a year more experienced, I would like to add: Rallying is fun, frustration, love affair, anger, anguish, concentration, possibility to see places too remote for the tourist crowd yet beautiful and pristine, being called by your own adult sons "crazy mom" (probably the highest appreciation they can muster), expenses not understood by many folks, and unlimited hours spent building, repairing, and improving the CAR, that becomes a main object in your life.

There is also much deeper appreciation of the skills of all those engineers, mechanics, and friends of the rallying circuit - their devotion to this sport is unlimited. I am also very grateful to Ivan for all this experience. I learned both to admire and hate his analytical thinking that drives me crazy so often, yet knowing that no matter how I do not like his conclusions, he is 90% (or is it 99%?) right.

Sounds like fun? Yes, rallying is fun, check it out!

May, 1995

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