Table of contents:
- Overview of the 3-Day Sprint Rally program
- Videos
- Gallery
- Thank you…
- Social media and links
- Check out my previous events with DirtFish!
Overview
Each year, DirtFish organizes a Rally Sprint event, for students who have previously completed their training, to allow for experiencing the full spirit of Rally – with timed stages, penalties, managing the risk/reward, and making for amazing 3 days of racing with an amazing group of passionate folks!
As you may have seen from my other posts on this blog, I’ve previously completed all the 3-day programs DirtFish offers (Beginner, Advanced, Elite), and some additional events on top (Mill Run), thus I was really excited to try myself in this fun format of an event.
Before I dive into more details, I’d like to thank my wife Sheetal, as the participation in Rally Sprint has been a gift from her ❤️🙂
Note that despite the slide in above photo mentioning “AWD”, we had both AWD (2 drivers) and RWD (8 drivers, including me) classes.
I was driving car #2 on day 1, #12 on day 2, and then #6 on day 3.
Alright, let’s see how it went!
Review of the 3-day event
Day 1 started with quick introductions in the classroom, and a refresher on the basics – we had a quite diverse group of participants – some of us were driving in just the days prior, for others it’s been a year or two since we had the pleasure of sliding through a gravel turn, so it’s great to help level-set and get everyone to the baseline quickly.
Morning exercises consisted of quick warm-up and shaking off the cobwebs, as we were doing couple sets of slalom. Shortly afterwards we jumped into the first stage: Link (which is slalom + Boneyard, for those of us familiar with the configuration of DirtFish’s amazing courses).
In the afternoon, we practiced a bit of shifting (before, into-, and out-of-a turn), and then followed that by jumping into another course: Grid Long (with particularly entertaining surface changes – driving conditions can change quickly, better be ready for it!).
The pace on continued to pick up quickly on Day 2. Classroom was short (and I appreciate how instructors re-inforce that… at this point we know what’s what, and the best path to sustaining the progression is by practice in the car!), and we quickly moved to an exercise of linked corners at speed. Opportunity to throw some pendulums, and start asking your co-pilot to time the runs, so that we can individually evaluate what works for our driving style (and the conditions presented to us) best.
Still before the lunch break, we moved on to next course: The Grid Advanced (I mean it when I say the pace continues to pick up!). We did few sets here (laps were not yet officially being timed), and at this point I think it’s fair to say that all the drivers felt back in the groove. With each lap, we were in the flow state, and it was so satisfying to devour each corner 😉 At this moment I remembered about the confusing nature of time perception – when driving, it all went by so fast, as if in a blink of an eye, and then when another group was on the course, the waiting for our turn felt like forever… 😀
Afternoon of Day 2 is when we had qualifying sessions. Those took place on The Elite Grid – which includes surface changes, a tricky hairpin, couple late/risky breaking zones, and a very slippery, long, sweeping turn (don’t get greedy!). The Rally was now officially in! We’ve been watching our times, comparing, celebrating wins and reflecting on mistakes. Game on!
Day 3 is when the stakes were the highest. We’re now fighting for the points/times, and there’s way more of us drivers than there’s places on the podium… 😉
There were no demo laps by instructors – it’s all up to us to become familiarized with the stages. We got 1 recce lap, refined the driver’s notes with our co-pilots (I had the pleasure of working with Adam in the morning, and Michelle in the afternoon – both were wonderful, knowledgeable, and supportive 🙏).
There were 2 Rally Sprint courses (1 in the morning, and 1 in the afternoon), and we had 2 sessions for each of them, consisting of 3 laps (+1 recce) in first session and 4 in second.
Through the morning, I managed to get the best time on the first stage that remained on the leaderboard nearly till the very last lap in our group, at which point I got dethroned (great work, Chris!).
We’ve seen some amazing driving, impressive last-minute saves that got us out of the chairs as we were watching drivers in the second group – we were all dialed in 😎
As we were moving to second and final stage after the lunch, we had a chance to see our intermediate times, and lots of strategizing followed – I wanted to focus on… consistency. Keep climbing the ladder by refining my driving, but make sure I don’t get too aggressive or greedy, and sacrifice the hard fought for results in a single corner (the penalties for cones and poles could make all the difference, and hitting a tire results in disqualification).
That seems to have all paid of, as… I got 3rd place in RWD class! 🥳🏆
It’s been an incredibly exciting 3 days of driving, learning, racing with amazing group of people, and challenging myself to go faster and improve my times. Going back to “real life” afterwards has proven bit challenging, and I also learned that this is commonly referred to as “rally hang-over” 😀
Memorable quotes
Here are some quotes I jotted down through the course of 3 days – I’ve heard some of them previously also being shared with students of the other courses DirtFish offers, and I find all of them very insightful – great way to put important concepts into words, memorize, and keep on the back of our minds as we zoom through the stages:
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“In like a lamb, out like a lion“
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“Don’t commit to the chaos in the car“
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“Better to go slow through the corner than fast into the tree“
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“Rally is entirely interpretive“
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“Cones mark where the turn is, not how to go through it”
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“With fatigue, vision is the first thing to deteriorate”
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“Steering wheel pointed straight and going straight are 2 different things in rally”
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“Slalom is not a series of turns, but rather series of straights“
Interesting stories…
Those 3 days were packed with fun, adventures, and excitement. I thought of sharing few seemingly random, top of mind, memories, as it all contributed to such a wonderful experience!
- In the middle of Day 2, I realized that… I lost my wedding ring! I put it in my pocket as it almost slipped off my finger when I was getting into the car and getting stapped into the harness, to make sure it doesn’t fall. However, as I was getting in and out of the car between runs, I realized it was no longer in my pocket. This shook me up, as it’s not the monetary value that would be missed, rather the sentimental one. I looked for it everywhere I thought it could’ve fallen, and everyone was super helpful and joined the search between our runs as soon as they learned what happened. One of fellow drivers (hi Zach!) approached me as I was walking and looking intentively at the ground asking if I’m “searching for gold”, and he was on point! 😀 The day ended without ring being found, but…
- On the morning of Day 3 I found the ring in the bus that was taking us between courses!!! Honestly, I didn’t think the ring would be found in there (and we checked it the day before as well), so… I’ll classify this as a pure miracle – and what does an incident like that make for our mental state is hard to describe – at that moment I felt like I had already won the best price from the Rally, and everything else is just a nice bonus 🙂 It certainly took the edge off, and helped me enjoy the process with now somehow much less stress.
- One of DirtFish instructors, Kip, makes cool and relaxing videos of rock skipping – I’ve been really enjoying such moments of peace showing up regularly on my IG feed, and made a small gift for Kip:
Videos
Short montage (without laps):
Long montage – including edit of clips from 3 days, and also full qualifier + best lap of each stage:
Laps only – Qualifying and best times per stage:
Gallery
My photos from official DirtFish photographer:
Few photos from between the stages:
Rally happens rain or shine, and since it’s November, there’s certainly been a lot of rain and mud – but that makes for fun driving conditions, so no complaints from my side. Knowing what’s coming, I took photos of my shoes showing the before and after 😀 Luckily, they clean up nice:
Our “racing accomplishments” wall had an empty spot, which I was now able to fill in with the certificate from the 3-Day Rally Sprint event! 🥳 Each of them carries so many fun memories…
And our whole group together at the end of day 3 🫡
Thank you…
Huge thank you to amazing instructors/co-pilots! 🙏
Michelle, Mitch, Adam, Sean, Daniel, Kip, Jack, Eric, Geoff – thank you for the great feedback, encouragement and vote of confidence.
Your support is what makes it all possible 😊
Through the course of 3 days, I learned something else from every instructor I had the pleasure of working with:
- Daniel taught me to clean up my thinking process, compartmentalize things (pick what I want to work on, lean into the experience, go with the flow and don’t overthink).
- Mitch helped me shake off the cobwebs and quickly encouraged me to keep experimenting (safely of course 😎),
- Sean brought huge amount of energy that was extremely rejuvenating as exhaustion started setting in, and his encouragement made all the difference,
- Eric helped keep the energy and hype high, and re-assured me that I can trust my instincts when driving and pushing a bit more,
- Adam helped ensure that I am prepared for final stages both with my technique, as well as the mindset – he reiterated importance of consistency, reminded about gains being hard to make and loses being quick to come by and impactful if we push too much,
- And at the final stages Michelle helped me really step mentally into the rally mode – she gave amazing instructions, customized drivers notes on the fly as we were making improvements, and encouraged me through every lap, helping stay focused on the target and having so much fun!
It all went by so fast, but the memories are something that will stay with me for a long time… Can’t wait to be back at DirtFish!
(I’m missing photo with Daniel, who was my first instructor on the 1st day and I forgot to snap one!)
Thank you to fellow participants – I had a pleasure of racing with an amazing group of drivers:
Jeff, Ron, Ryan, Chris, Rob W., Rob B., Kai, Zach 🫡
And of course, thank you to my wife Sheetal for her support and gifting me the participation in this rally! ❤️
Social media links
I shared my impressions also on Instagram:
and on Facebook:
Visit DirtFish website to learn more about the rally school:
Check out my previous events with DirtFish!
- DirtFish 3-Day Beginner RWD – from August 2021
- DirtFish 1-Day Mill Run RWD – from June 2022
- DirtFish 3-Day Advanced RWD – from October 2022
- DirtFish 3-Day Elite RWD – from April 2023
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