Rally Racing (Rallying)

If the English dictionary needed a word to perfectly describe the phrase "stupidly dangerous but fun", it would be "Rallying".

Rally Racing

Rallying according to Wikipedia is a wide-ranging form of motorsport with various competitive motoring elements such as speed tests, navigation tests, or the ability to reach waypoints or a destination at a prescribed time or average speed. My own definition of Rallying will go thus, "the motorsport that has produced the most number of widows and orphans, but we all love it". I agree that my definition is quite exaggerated but rally is considered one of the most dangerous motorsports because both the drivers and spectators are at risk of death in the event of an accident.

Spectators almost crushed to death by a rally car

Rallying as a form of road competition can be traced back to the origins of motorsport, including the world's first known motor race, the 1894 Paris–Rouen Horseless Carriage Competition which was sponsored by a Paris newspaper. It attracted considerable public interest and entries from leading automobile manufacturers at the time, with the Peugeot car company clinching the win.

The event led to a period of city to city road races being organized in Europe and America, which introduced many of the features found in rallying today, like driving over long distances on ordinary, mainly gravel roads, facing hazards such as dust, traffic, pedestrians and farm animals, with the major similarity being individual start times with cars running against the clock rather than head to head. The last statement means that racers are not racing against themselves for 1st, 2nd or 3rd position per se, but rather racing against time. Meaning that the racer who completes the events in less time is 1st position and so on.

So, what are the unique characteristics of Rallying? Unlike Formula One (F1) in which a driver takes control of the entirety of the car and races on a defined circuit, rally is the exact opposite. First off, two persons comprising the driver and co-driver are required to man a vehicle in rally racing. Simply put, the driver is the person who drives the car while the co-driver accompanies the driver inside the car, serving mainly as a navigator. The co-driver and driver may swap roles but this is an uncommon scenario. Also, there is no circuit for rally. Rally is done on open roads in the forest, dessert, on ice and even swamps. Basically, rally entails driving cars where they should normally not be driven, lol.

Driver at the steering while Co-driver with the road map

Personally, I fell in love with rally racing even before Formula One (F1). I remember having a rallying game on my PlayStation 2, I can't remember the name of the game but it was so interesting. I also had another rally type game called down hill domination but this one was with motorcycles and you had to navigate dirt roads while racing against the clock. These video games set the foundation for my love of rally but the solidifying factor was a man called Ken Block. 

Kenneth Paul Block

Ken Block was a professional rally driver who passed on early in the year, precisely on the 2nd of January, 2023 in a skiing accident. Ken Block might not have been the best rally racer of all time, but he raced with so much finesse that he made the sport so attractive to many including myself. You can look through my catalogue for the blogpost dedicated to him. I recently came across a YouTube video of Ken Block devouring a rally track and he did it with so much precision, you would think he was programmed for the track.

I will conclude by stating that rally racing is less about having skills, rather it is more about having the balls for such a treacherous sport. As a rally driver, you literally put the pedal to the floor while looking the devil in the eye and that is the appeal of rally to me and probably every other rallying fan out there. I hope to someday compete in an amateur rally event, fingers crossed.

Thank you for reading and always remember to Turbo that engine!