Some cars are all about going very fast. Some are all about luxury. And some, the very best of them perhaps, just seem to be all about going sideways. Take the old Ford Escort, marks one and two – the real ’Scorts before the blight of front-wheel-drive hit Dagenham. Even a picture of one doesn’t look quite right unless a touch of opposite lock has been dialled in, does it? And as I rediscovered recently, it’s still as much fun to get behind the wheel of an old Escort as it always was. But while that’s all very nice, all very nostalgic – you’re thinking – just what the hell is a cutting edge mag like PT doing messing around with 30-year-old technology?
Well, MkII Escorts just happen to be the teaching aid of choice at the renowned Silverstone Rally School, now in its 25th year of existence and situated just a stone’s throw from where ’Nando, Lewis, Kimi and the boys do their stuff every July. But, much more importantly, also the place where PT is to learn – just a little – about the art of rally driving.
“The Escort is ideal for newcomers to rallying,” says our instructor for the day, Trevor Clemson, a rally driver with over 30 years experience. “It is far easier to judge someone’s ability and potential in a rear-wheel-drive car, because everything is separated, the drive and the steering are not going through the same wheels, so it’s easier to see where mistakes are made.”
It doesn’t hurt that the ’Scort also happens to be a rally classic, in fact it’s the quintessential rally car for many. So, starting off at the wheel of an old Escort is a bit like going to a race school and being given a Maserati 250F or a Lotus 49… well, not quite perhaps, but you get the point, and I for one couldn’t wait to get behind the wheel of one of the school’s red and green rally machines. But before we could climb aboard one of the RS2000s (droop snoots swapped for flat fronts for practical reasons, they’re getting harder to replace) it was time for a little theory.
Rally Round
The Silverstone Rally School (SRS) attracts all sorts of people, many taking part in the day because it was a gift, while others come along to get a feel for the sport to see if they like it. On the day PT attended, a full day’s Clubmans Course (cost: £255), there were five others, ranging from a chap from Jersey who owns an historic rally Fiat 131 Abarth and wanted to brush up on his skills, to a teenager enjoying an 18th birthday treat. There were also quite a few guests, friends and family of those taking part in the course, which is unusual at this sort of thing, but it all added to what was a nice and relaxed atmosphere.
Now while classroom sessions might put some off, at SRS they are short, and rather than do all the theory in one big indigestible chunk, you return to the classroom throughout the day, giving you the chance to mull over the mistakes you’ve made out on the stage. There is actually quite a bit of detail to take in, too, as rallying is almost certainly going to be very different from any other driving you’ve done, even if you have plenty of track driving experience under your belt, or rather, especially if you have plenty of track driving experience.
“It’s those who have absolutely no idea of what to expect who are probably easiest to teach,” says Clemson, before adding that women often tend to be better than men to begin with, because they are not shot full of testosterone and hence they’re not over-aggressive with the car, they listen to what they are being told and… er, I wasn’t listening to the rest…
I was listening to that first lecture, though, as Clemson – an excellent coach, by the way – explained how you should always try to keep to the middle of the road, where the stones and other rubbish have been swept away, so it offers more grip. He then went through the basics of how to do a proper handbrake turn and then turned to the ‘pendulum effect’ – which might sound like the title of a Hollywood spy thriller, but is actually far more exiting, as we were about to discover.
Stage Craft
The SRS stage is a tight and twisty dirt track and mostly first and second gear stuff, but it is ideal for learning the basics of driving a rally car, with a good variety of corners and a choice of layouts. Interestingly, the cars actually run on MoT failure tyres, which, as SRS managing director David Taunt admits, helps stop the stage from cutting up. More importantly, this also means pupils can slide the cars at slower speeds. “These tyres mean we don’t have to carry lots of speed to show the technique,” says Clemson. “You can always give people more speed, but it’s important you make sure they have the control to begin with.”
The first layout we used was a small circuit featuring two very tight left-handers, both of which required a tug of the handbrake to help get the car around. One of the things also taught at this point is the importance of getting the front tyres to ‘bite’ into the surface of the stage. As you come towards the corner in second gear you brake very hard, so that the weight transfers to the nose and pushes down on the front wheels, which bite into the loose surface, giving you a stable platform on which to pivot the car.
The next step is to turn the car in, and then you declutch – it’s rear-wheel-drive, remember, and you don’t want to be slowing and driving the wheels at the same time – before finally yanking up the handbrake. Once around the turn you select first gear and accelerate away. Now this interested me, and I wondered why it wouldn’t be better to select first before the turn, which would mean you could be on it immediately for a fast exit?
“As you approach the corner the last thing you want to do is upset the car more than you need too,” explained Clemson. “And a gearchange there could easily lock the diff when you take your foot off the clutch, which will throw the car sideways.”
Throwing the car sideways was just what the next exercise was all about. On a small patch of slippery stuff we were told to drive in a figure-of-eight around some bollards, turning the car on the throttle. But there was more to this than just a heavy right foot, the idea was to come out of the first turn, then lift off the throttle suddenly, causing the rear of the car to snap in the other direction, which you then pick up on the throttle to make the turn around the next bollard – the pendulum effect we were told about earlier.
While much of the skill in getting this right is down to good throttle and car control, the exercise is also important in highlighting just how vital it is to look where you want to go to rather than towards where the front of the car is pointed. This is because, Clemson explained, people have a psychological propensity to follow their nose and go where they’re looking. So, if the car is sideways and you’re looking through the windscreen, then you’ve a fair chance of exiting stage left.
What it also means is that when you’re doing your figure-of-eights you find that you are actually looking over your shoulder at some points, because that’s where you want to go next… Well, there and the pub, of course, and luckily the White Horse did happen to be the next port of call.
“Scampi – 90-right!”
Now I wouldn’t normally write about the lunch in a piece like this – though it was nice enough scampi – but I loved the way it was incorporated into the day’s learning at SRS. You see, before you set off for Silverstone village and the White Horse Inn you are given a sheet of paper with tulip diagrams – the schematics used in a rally road book – to show the way to the pub! Nice touch.
It’s also a reminder that rallying is not the solitary pursuit that racing can be, and this is emphasised throughout the day. So, when you are out in the car the instruction you get is just about continuous, to get you used to someone talking you through a stage, and also to get you used to being able to concentrate on what the navigator is saying while also concentrating on the driving. A key skill, says David Taunt, and one many newcomers struggle with. “It is very difficult for many of them to hold the level of concentration required to drive the car and also to concentrate on what the instructor is saying. It really isn’t as easy as it sounds,” Taunt says.
He’s right, and sometimes you just want the instructor to shut up so you can get on with the driving. But that’s the point, you need to get used to it, out on the stages a rally driver relies massively on their navigator, for without his or her calls the driver has no idea what is coming next. Clearly then, there must be a huge bond of trust between the two in the front seats. “In rallying you need to trust your navigator 100 per cent,” says Clemson, “the trust between a navigator and the driver has to be colossal.”
After lunch we were let out on the full stage, stitching everything we had learnt in the morning together and hand-braking left and right and using the pendulum effect to swing the car through a left-right series of two corners. It’s great fun, but it’s also very easy to get carried away, and perhaps the easiest trap of all to fall into is using the steering wheel too much.
Now that might sound a little strange; after all you’re snapping from one extreme of oppy-locky to another, so surely you need to work the tiller like a helmsman in a hurricane – like hanging wallpaper in a gale, as Aussie race legend Frank Gardner once put it? Not so, just as it is in racing, quite often you need to use the steering wheel as little as possible, and most of the actual direction change is brought on with the throttle steering the rear of the car through the back wheels.
Also, another thing that rallying has in common with racing, and something that might surprise some, is that smooth driving is undoubtedly quicker. It’s obvious when you’re out there, even on this little stage: to be fast you need to be going forward, and when a car is going sideways it’s not going forward as quickly as it could. This is particularly important on the exit of a turn, where it is also easiest of all to plant your foot and showboat.
Crash Course
The final element to the day is a run through a stage Clemson makes up on the hoof, calling the corners as if it’s a real rally. But not, thankfully, two corners before as it’s done on those real events – I really didn’t think my brain could cope with that.
Actually, there was another thing that my brain didn’t seem to be able to cope with, and that was the fact that you don’t necessarily need to clip the inside of a corner in a rally car, as you would in a track car, and in fact it can even be a disastrous practice. “You should never clip the apex,” says Clemson, “because there could be a rock, a ditch, or a tree stump there, and that could rip your front suspension off and that’s your rally over. That’s why we don’t tend to cut corners unless we’re 100 per cent certain there is nothing to hit.”
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of hitting things, Clemson also advises that if you are going to crash, then go in backwards; that way there’s less chance of damaging something that would spell the end of your rally, and every chance of continuing.
It’s that sort of never-give-up attitude that is central to the rallying ethos, something personified in the late and great Colin McRae, whose loss is still keenly felt by all as I write, and probably will still be as you read. And do you know what McRae used to do for fun? He would rally his own MkII Escort. After just a tiny taste of rallying at the wheel of an RS2000, I can understand why.
