It was a bad day to be a traffic cone at Silverstone.
They were helpless, vulnerable, victims thrust into harm’s way of a giant, zooming car being controlled by an utterly useless driver. It is a shameful irony, considering the Silverstone Rally School is a mere overzealous and poorly controlled drift away from the iconic race track.
Around the corner, Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, Valentino Rossi, and many others have dropped jaws over the course of 76 years of glorious history. Fast forward to the present day, an utterly clueless, and downright terrified driver, who gets fuzzy feelings about the revs of their Ford Fiesta, was unexpectedly thrust behind the wheel of a completely different beast.
Here is how I got on when I got behind the wheel of a hefty rally car.
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I will be honest, I am not the best driver. While I do not have any points on my licence, my beloved Fiesta still bears the scars of numerous scrapes and bumps into multi-storey car park walls and Essex countryside bushes. I am yet to have a serious accident, thankfully, but I have embarrassed myself by stalling in heavy traffic, while entering busy roundabouts, and, briefly, blocking various junctions. And on a brisk afternoon at Silverstone, I was able to add a rally car track to that list.
You can imagine my horror when I found myself behind the wheel of a top quality rally car. I felt like a paintball player who had been handed a brain gun and then shoved into a war zone. Ahead of me laid a course, mapped out by mangled traffic cones and concentric walls of tyres designed to cushion the crashes of drivers like myself.
In the first lap, I acquainted myself with the devilishly tight corners that almost required a politician-like U-Turn to get around. As somebody that took ages to master a classic three-point turn in the road - despite passing their driving test in 2020 - I was terrified at the thought of a handbrake turn.
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Yet that was the only way to navigate around these muddy corners unless you were driving at a snail’s pace, which, I admittedly was at the beginning. We were given a slick and speedy explanation of how to perform a handbrake turn. “You must stick your foot down on the accelerator as you approach the corner,” our instructor David, who has given this demonstration to the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Hollywood stuntmen, said.
Fear was already drifting around my body in the way I was expected to fly away from the course. The pressure on my poor driving shoulders was ramped up when I found out I was the only person in the group who had actually passed their test. Shortly after learning how to find the bite point of a car, the other drivers actually did rather well on the course.
“You should be good at this,” instructor Chris, who, perhaps foolishly, volunteered to accompany me in the car, laughed. It was almost as if he believed my time is spent flying around the corners of rural Essex in my Fiesta while laughing maniacally at terrified pedestrians and Fiat 500 drivers.
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After we all sat down, it was time for a crash course explanation of the handbrake turn. Keep your hand at 6 o’clock on the steering wheel in preparation for a full lock, hit the accelerator at the corner, slam your foot on the clutch, rip up the handbrake as hard as you can, glide gracefully around the corner, before getting off the clutch and slamming your foot down on the accelerator to straighten up.
A.T.C.H (accelerator, turn, clutch, handbrake) reverberated around my mind as I made my way around the course. Unfortunately, to my horror, I realised the Subaru car was completely different to my beloved Fiesta. For starters, it is enormous. When you are used to a supermini car like a Fiesta, driving a Subaru feels like manoeuvring an abnormally fast tank. I was also shocked to see the handbrake was where my gear stick normally is and the gear stick was where my handbrake normally is - remember this bit of information as it explains my performance.
To find the bite point, I felt like my left knee had to be level with my ear, such is the power that is needed to move this magnificent beast. Then we were off. We approached the first corner. As I got ready to whip the car around the corner, I was told by my instructor I was nowhere near the required speed to drift. “You’ll just stop if you try that now,” he said, while a large part of masculinity departed my body and escaped out the window.
As a bit of confidence flowed through my veins and along a long narrow straight of the course, I applied metal to the pedal. Chris cranked up the tension by saying: “Get ready.” As I sped towards a tight left corner he shouted, “now…..no handbrake, handbrake!”
Remember when I said the gear stick was where my handbrake normally is. Well, as I marauded my way towards a sharp corner, I yanked the gear stick instead of the handbrake. The result - the car not braking at all and flying towards a set of woodland at high speeds. Chris is a veteran when it comes to sitting alongside terrible drivers, but even he allowed the unmistakable sound of terror to creep into his otherwise calm and reassuring voice. Luckily, he was on hand to yank the handbrake for me. The drift was not too bad, but it is something that should not require a team effort.
“Keep your hand on the gear stick,” he said, surprisingly calmly, considering we both nearly flew into the woods. Such was the power of his handbrake yank, the car, perhaps wisely, was brought to a complete stop. As I did my best to acquaint myself with the position of the handbrake, I forgot about the struggle I had of starting the car.
To cut a long story short, I stalled it - in front of the watchful gaze of the non-driving folk in my group who did not manage to do this. My pride felt like it had been hit by a Subaru car, driven clumsily by myself. With the kind of grit in my teeth which would concern 9/10 dentists, I thrust the car into acceleration and attacked the next corner. Surprisingly, I miraculously got it spot on. The car drifted and straightened itself out all because of me. I attacked the next corner and, like clockwork, we flew around with wonderful, petrol-filled grace. I found myself at the same narrow straight and applied even more pace. I got the order spot on: accelerator, turn, clutch, handbrake.
However, I forgot the vital, final push of the accelerator you need to straighten the car, resulting in me spinning the car 270 degrees and entering the off-course track used for their SUV driving. We proceeded with many more laps and I was delighted to say that I did get the hang of it. I exited the car with adrenaline flying through my veins and an unprecedented intent on doing some reckless things when reunited with my Fiesta. Fortunately for all slow drivers and cyclists in Essex, these thoughts were extinguished before I got behind the wheel of my beloved motor.
Rally driving was not high on my list of things to do, but it was a thrilling, unforgettable experience. And if they can get me to fly around the corners, they can certainly teach you - even if your licence is still bright green.
