Why You Should Be Rallying, Part II

The Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Be Rallying(Preferably with the Finger Lakes SCCA.)
(But not in my class.)


1. Be smarter! Road rallying increases your eye-hand-foot coordination, math abilities, powers of concentration, sense of direction, and determination.

2. Navigators: Work on your trust issues! As a navigator, you will have to take in on faith that what may seem like reckless, out-of-control idiotic driving is actually the result of your partner’s driving prowess.
Drivers: Work on your poker face! When your driving is reckless, out-of-control, and idiotic, a straight face will convince your partner that you are the driving expert you lied and told him you were.

3. Beat Alan! It has been done. It could be done again. It could be done by you.

4. Test the limits of your marriage! Want to know just how much you love each other? Rally together. Remember, what is screamed said in the car, stays in the car. And hopefully that’s not your daily driver.

5. Execute Extreme Quality Testing on Your Car! Perform hand-brake turns! Hear your car make new and exciting noises! Test your roll cage! See how easily you can get urine out of the passenger seat when your driving makes the navigator pee his pants.

6. Visit new and interesting places! Even if you won’t be able to see anything but the road, and even then only the ten feet ahead of you.

7. Experience the thrill of thinking you are speeding when you aren’t supposed to ever exceed local speed limits! (“Supposed to”) Note that this one will also help you calm a worried parent, spouse, friend, significant other. “But we never even go over the speed limit!” you’ll say, knowing that driving on these roads, in the snow, at night, at or even slightly under the speed limit is, at times more terrifying exciting than an outsider could imagine.

8. Perform an anthropological study on public restrooms and what those configurations reveal about the owner/operators’ views of the environment, privacy, gender issues, and cleanliness! This may not actually appeal to everyone.

9. Buy a ham! Learn about the secret grocery store deep in the southern tier that sells good half-hams at can’t-be-passed-up prices!

10. Learn why someone can be irate over a tenth of second! (Or, in some cases, a hundredth of a second). Learn also how a small mistake can be brought up year after year as the reason why a season went awry and the title slipped out of your hands.