For almost as long as automobiles have been produced, enthusiasts have put them to the test in motorsport competition. Motorsports has been a part of Subaru of America’s identity since 2000 when Subaru Motorsports USA first competed in professional rallying in the United States.
Today, Subaru Motorsports USA competes in stage rally, rallycross and record attempts like the Mt. Washington Hillclimb – a time trial up the Auto Road at the Northeast’s highest peak in New Hampshire. These competitions are a means of promoting not only the WRX used by Subaru Motorsports USA drivers in rally and rallycross but all of the vehicles in the Subaru lineup.
Worldwide, rallying is one of the most popular forms of motorsport. It’s not as prominent in the United States, but thousands of fans still make their way to far-flung locations all over the country, starting in Atlanta, Michigan (pop. 703), which hosts the Sno*Drift Rally in February every year, the first race in the American Rally Association® (ARA) season. The ARA National Championship schedule ends with the Lake Superior Performance Rally on October 14 and 15 in and around Marquette, Michigan.
Standing out in the woods, watching some of your favorite drivers compete on the same stages with average Janes and Joes in their own vehicles is a gateway to learning more about the sport – and eventually researching rally school. But you don’t have to be a rally fan or even remotely interested in the sport to get confidence-building and potentially lifesaving driving experience out of one of America’s rally schools.
While the prime directive for rally schools is to teach racing drivers the ropes, these schools also exist to teach ordinary drivers how to get the most out of the vehicles they drive regularly in conditions that are a lot more challenging than smooth asphalt.
Steve Powers from Seattle, Washington, says his wife gifted him a rally driving course for his 50th birthday. “I did not intend to be a rally driver. My intent was to improve my driving skills,” he says.
DirtFish
Snoqualmie, WA
DirtFish is located in the foothills of the Cascade Range, about 30 miles from Seattle and a dream location for a driving school. The school was founded in 2010 with “the idea that the exciting sport of rally should be accessible to everyone.”
The school built its reputation on training rally drivers, but instructors teach car control to nonprofessionals, too, in private schools and at corporate events. Even students who have no interest in rallying can learn some basic skills and become better drivers in the two-hour, half-day or full-day courses that DirtFish offers.
DirtFish puts students in either a Subaru BRZ with rear-wheel drive or a Subaru WRX STI with all-wheel drive and provides basic car control training on gravel roads, which allows students to experience how a car moves when traveling on a loose surface.
“It’s all about managing the weight of the car and moving it to help get you through any corner on any surface,” says Trevor Wert, director of marketing with DirtFish.
In a two-hour course, drivers learn about how weight transfers front to back and side to side and how that affects the way the car drives. Throttle management teaches students to use throttle inputs to help steer the vehicle, while left foot braking helps to keep engine rpm high for optimal shifts while still slowing the car to enter a sharp corner.
“Rally schools are controlled and safe environments for people to come and learn these skills without having to worry about breaking their cars or the laws on public roads,” Wert says.
Team O’Neil
Dalton, NH
Many drivers panic at the thought of a vehicle starting to slide, but at rally schools like Team O’Neil, instructors help students induce a slide on purpose, correcting the car’s position as it negotiates a turn. Twenty-five years ago, the school launched as a preparatory course for rally drivers, but it’s branched out to include off-road driving schools and their specialty – most relevant for drivers who aren’t interested in the rally classes – a winter driving course.
Jay Condrick enrolled in Team O’Neil’s Winter Driving School in January 2022. He’s been a winter driver in New England since the 1980s. “The first day we spent about 40 minutes in the classroom, and while the first lessons felt a little remedial, the pace of learning went very quickly,” he says.
After a short classroom session, students drive their own vehicles on Team O’Neil’s open skid pad and slalom areas through a variety of exercises on the snow. Drivers gain experience about how their vehicle handles and reacts on slippery surfaces as well as how the safety systems in their own vehicle – such as anti-lock brakes, Vehicle Dynamics Control and dual-function X-MODE® with Hill Descent Control – operate in often rapidly changing winter conditions.
“We had a great mix of students,” says Condrick. “There were some with significant experience, but others that were really trying to work through their fear of driving in bad weather. You could watch them put skills together and get more confident as the course went on.”
RallyPro
Starke, FL
At the opposite end of the Eastern Seaboard, the state of Florida (average annual snowfall 0.0 inches, maximum elevation 345 feet) might seem like an unlikely place for a rally school, but it’s home to RallyPro Performance Driving School at the Florida International Rally & Motorsport Park, or “The FIRM.”
The FIRM is a 420-acre on- and off-road playground with 22 miles of rally stages and a 1.6-mile road course. Located about one hour south of Jacksonville in Starke, Florida, The FIRM offers rally instruction both on a 1-to-1 basis with professional instructors or two students with one instructor.
Unique to RallyPro is a one-day Teen Driver Safety course, which teaches drivers with less experience how to test and refine their reflexes, navigate obstacles and stop most effectively in an emergency. The course puts an instructor with two students in a car so they can both experience the lesson for themselves and watch the lesson from the back seat.
“This is not parking lot instruction and cone turns,” the school indicates. “Our teen driving school teach[es] total car control and safe driving practices.”
Rally Ready
Dale, TX
Rally Ready is located about 30 miles southeast of the state capital in Austin, Texas, and 15 minutes east of Circuit of the Americas™, where the only Formula One race in America takes place. The school has a 140-acre Rally Ranch with an obsessively groomed racecourse built for rallying. The school launched in 2012, moving into its permanent home in 2015.
Rally Ready primarily exists as a facility to train tomorrow’s amateur and professional rally drivers and to further hone the skills of those already competing. But there’s a lot of merit in just getting students behind the wheel to experience what driving on a slippery course is all about, so Rally Ready has a “Rally Experience” class, offering three laps around their Infield Rally Stage for just $99.
From there, drivers can choose from one- to two-day courses, including an advanced session and private training. The facility has the tree-lined, jump-happy rally stages you’d expect, but it also features wide-open pastures for what it calls “consequence-free beginner lessons.”
For novices or people with decades of driving experience, rally schools offer a tremendous learning experience. “I had taken track days with both motorcycles and cars before this,” says Powers. “The most important thing I learned was to keep driving. Don’t give up. In a drive with an instructor, we snapped a tie rod end at full tilt headed for the woods. With only a single wheel responding to steering input, we were able to maneuver away from the trees.”
“It’s always been easy for me to shut off what I think I know and just listen to what instructors are telling me to do,” says Condrick. “When they had me ignore my impulses and stay off the accelerator until I had traction, I could feel how much more control when exiting an icy turn.”
