Questions about rally cars?

Im 16 and want to start rally driving but I lack driving, mechanical exrpience and knowledge, money and a co driver.
I want to start off with rallycross and eventually move onto rally.
I have a few problems though I dont know what cars would be suitable for a newb.
I would love a subaru of some type. How much can a old subaru cost?
What are the stages of modifying a car into a racing carfor rallycross? All I know about modifying cars into racing cars is to get rid of all the unncessary things and weld the roll cage piece by piece inside the car and strenghten the shell.

If I get serious in motorsport and to go into the bigger events I would need a sponsorship.

My uncle owns a big injection moulding company and was thinking about asking him to sponsor me. Im not sure how to ask him. I dont see him much and all the times I have seen him he has been happy.
The reason I want to ask him for a sponsorship is because we are related and would like to help him advertise his company and in return he could help me. I dont want to seem rude or anything a like.
How should I go about this should I send a email to his comapny or speak to him in person which would be a bit hard for me as I hardly ever see him.

What should I say to him? I was thinking of saying saying the advantages and disavantages but I dont know how good the advantages would be or how the disavantages would be.

Is there any custom parts in/for a car that can be injection moulded?
If I went on to events that are popular and had a sponsorship would it be benificial to a big injection moulding company?

Get a decent cheap car, attend cone dodging on dirt or tarmac (rally-x or auto-x)
Get decent tires, finish -not last- a few times, enjoy it.
Spectate/Volunteer at local rallies/hillclimbs/rally-sprints
Save up money, decide what you want to do from there.

As far as sponsorship, if you're on good terms with the family member, maybe they'll toss out a few bucks to pay for the stickers on your car... But unless they've got a lot of extra cash laying around, or you're finishing 1st nationally every time you're racing don't expect people to pay for your stuff.
(Edit: And even the people who are winning nationally can't get sponsorships... But starting young is a plus if you keep it up and don't park your 323 GTX in a tree)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2012 01:22PM by PotatoFlakeSTi.

Hi Jordan, welcome aboard here..
You have a pile of questions and it probably would have helped to say you're in the heart of the Motorsport Silicon Valley aka the southern Midlands of England and that you're headed for college in the motorsports program at...well where ever it is.
That makes a difference in the answers cause rally is much more a "known thing" in UK, and the economic value is recognised in your area.
I mean how many serious motorsport business are in the area around Daventry and Banbury?
Answer: PILES of them...

So apprenticeships and eventual sponsorships aren't foreign ideas.
In general the important single point I'd make is to choose---whatever it is---something of a scale that you can actually pull off...and that means first and foremost something you can afford to buy and sustain---including tools, equipment, transport (Hello old Tranist!) and knowledge..

Tools in UK are shockingly dear new and you will need tools and decent ones at that. You mentioned your dad has an agricultural engineering works, what is that exactly (could mean these days he builds new seeds or it could mean he builds and repairs huge fawkin tractors and plows and that could be hugely helpful).

You mentioned thinking about Peugeot and anywhere else in the whole world (except France) I'd say "you're fawkin nuts" just because of the lack of serious rally specific parts....but thanks to a couple of decades of serious support from Peugeot UK and their popular series in France, there's mountains of goodies for Pugs, and they're pretty damn good cars, and good engines and there's available gears and final drives and diffs---all things you will need probably sooner rather than later if you want to learn to drive a RALLY car on stages--and not just hoon around in a barely warmed over road car..

It's a long road and the biggest problem is its an expensive one and unfortunately, you haven't a lot to "sell" to a sponsor...

Here's a question: have you done any other motorsports of any sorts?
There are some that a young guy can just barely afford and which are a excellent "classroom" to learn EVERYTHING about being a rally driver (ie working on the thing, working on the diesel Transit you'll need to get to events, concentration for extended periods, surface awareness, weight shifts forward and back and left to right, the vital flexibility when your plans go amiss slightly, the results when your plans go utterly wrong and you fawk up big time, everything---for a price a young guy can afford...
and critically, its a pathway that many really great rally drivers took when they were young (like oh, Marcus Gröholm springs to mind, but in years past Miki Biasion, some guy named McRae, maybe Mäkinen)
(Maybe Mäkinen. For sure after he quit WRC, the coin dropped eventually----this is the 5 times WRC Champion:


Yeah I'm suggesting enduro or motocross bikes.
Best schooling possible by far for somebody with serious aspirations and a limited budget.

Whaddya think?

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

OK kid, round here you'll get a lotta likns to things in the different languages I speak or read--that was a skill learned pounding my head into the mud by the way----here's more on WRC driver Mäkinen and the only F1 driver ever to do anything worth a gawddam in WRC rally Kimi Raikkonen


And what did they ride?


Nice color!

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Thank you very much I didnt even think about doing motorcross to start off with. What do you recommened a old or new motorcross bike. And yes there is a lot of motorsport buisnesses around too much in fact. I only know about 15 companys that are near me but there is much more then that. Should I buy the tools and everyting else brand new?

Quote
Jordan Hanley
Thank you very much I didnt even think about doing motorcross to start off with. What do you recommened a old or new motorcross bike. And yes there is a lot of motorsport buisnesses around too much in fact. I only know about 15 companys that are near me but there is much more then that. Should I buy the tools and everyting else brand new?

Well Jordan, moto-cross was my career goal and i was lucky enough to have a couple of chances to talk to some extremely helpful and friendly guys when I was just about done with school here in Seattle....for fun wiki these names--they all discussed amongst themselves--and took quite a while too--the answer to my simple question "If I want to do what you guys are doing (that was to say International moto-cross, not World Chamionship), what should I do?"
Look up Dave Bickers from Coddenham outside of Ipswich ('60 and '61 250ccEuropean Champion before it was World Championship status)

Torsten Hallman from Uppsala, Sweden ('62, '63, 66, 67 250 World Champion)

Roger DeCoster then from near Brussel, last 30 years in Santa Barbara, California (then a young guy but went on to win 500cc World Championship titles)

I listened and did what they said... "Move to Sweden and give yourself 10 years---if you can't do it in 10 years, you're not going to..."

I did what they said--and it took 10 years or 11, but I was extremely lucky and the sport was a sport then, everybody sat in the same clubhouse and juniors sat and talked with reigning World Champions and National Champions--truly amazing...

The point about suggesting moto-cross AND enduro is that it does teach the exact same skills sets in the broadest sense and in the narrowest sense. Now bike guys who spend shit-piles of money on the latest trickest things have and will always rave about how absolutely tremendously better everything is everytime they pour a bunch of money into so new thang---which a cold detached appraisal will show is a very subtle refinement of the previous thing...

The thing is, the rider is absolutely the overarching most important element in motor-cross and enduro regardless of what the duffers will say... so any bike from the last 10+ years is fine depending on the specific bikes condition. OK?
Be aware that spares for high wear items in a critical need, and may take some time to get into the scene....

Tools, get second hand HIGH quality tools IN THE SIZES YOU'LL NEED, not an American Refrigerator sized tool chest ---which is just a weenie extender half the time..
Organise the tools, establish the habit of orderly tools not everything in a bucket or a pouch. Put the damn things back in the right place as a reflex..It IS quicker...

And get your priorities right: the work on a bike (and the diesel Transit and eventually the rally car) is a necessary evil to be able to beat on the bike (or car), something you have to do to learn what you have to learn.
Call it pennance. "Forgive me father for i have sinned" (had too much fun!).

Be canny, know that both rally, moto-cross and enduro attracts guys who I call "consumeroids" who have to have the trickest latest stuff and who, when it eventually dawns on them that they are not very good, and they didn't land a factory ride by finishing second from last, they dump their gear and drop out...
No point to worrying about the"latest and greatest"....YOU are the big variable in the total equation. keep remembering that..

I gotta go chase me little girls, more later

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Thanks for the information I forgot about its not always about the car/bike its the driver. I have been doing pyhsical exercises but I keep overdoing it so it takes a week to recover but hopefully I can do the exercises without getting sore for a week.

It says Roger De coster did a lot of pyhsical training. Do you have any idea what he did in his training regime?

I like it how Torsten Hallman started selling pants and gloves for income and it eventually became a succesful buisness.

When I first get a bike should I try to get use to it in a field and try to set up my own race track with cones.
It turns out that there is lots of motorcross tracks near me which is a huge surprise.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2012 06:05PM by Jordan Hanley.

Torsten Hallman Off Road
http://www.thormx.com/

I met Torsten's first hire who came over to the USA to run the very very successful company. He was Lars Larsson, and last time i saw him he was still riding and happily married and had a licence plate that read "Ol' Sueco"
(Old Swede in Spanish/Spanglish)

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Condition isn't gotten in a month. When I asked those guys "how long would you say it takes to get real condition?"

"4 years, if you don't have injuries"

Took 10 for me----and 35 years later I have had 4 operations in the last 4 years related to injuries from back then: 2 on spine, one new full metal knee and rebuilt nose and sinuses (nose was whacked hard and broken a couple of times and cheek bone once--but I finished!)

They said--all of them "make haste slowly". It takes time.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Do you mean pyhsical condition?

Quote
Jordan Hanley
Do you mean pyhsical condition?

Yes. Leg strength, and wind and just flat used to abuse like rocks breaking fingers or clobbered in the face with a shovel pull of mud when your speed is 40 mph and the mud's coming at you at 35.

And they mean 4 years of fairly regular training in the gym

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Quote
john vanlandingham
Took 10 for me----and 35 years later I have had 4 operations in the last 4 years related to injuries from back then: 2 on spine, one new full metal knee and rebuilt nose and sinuses (nose was whacked hard and broken a couple of times and cheek bone once--but I finished!)

Man! Where can I sign up!!!

---

Grant Hughes

Quote
NoCoast

Quote
john vanlandingham
Took 10 for me----and 35 years later I have had 4 operations in the last 4 years related to injuries from back then: 2 on spine, one new full metal knee and rebuilt nose and sinuses (nose was whacked hard and broken a couple of times and cheek bone once--but I finished!)

Man! Where can I sign up!!!

I did an intake questionnaire for some orthopedic doc visit one time and they had a silhouette of a body to draw in areas of previous medical problems..

You cannot imagine the drawing.. The whole thing was covered...Every finger broken from 2 to 14 times, arms, legs, teeth, nose, broken, tendon pulls, ligaments on both knees torn loose 2 times on Left, 3 times on right, meniscus torn 3 times right and 2 times left, ribs broken, hundreds of stitches--HUNDREDS...280 in one serious case.
But not all were from riding intensively.. there were some industrial injuries too. Heavy industry is intense and can be dangerous.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Jordan, you have to put where you live in your sign up stuff so we can get you into trouble faster.

Al, you have to come to race at Idaho so you can... be here racing... In idaho. Faster.

---

First Rally: 2010 First RallyX: 2004 (a bunch)
Driver (0), Co-Driver (7)
Organizer (3), Volunteer (3)
Cars Built (2.5), Engines Blown (2) Cages Built (0) # of rotations (3.5)
Last Updated, Apr 9, 2023