Car Control Boot Camp at Team O’Neil Rally School

We’ve all seen the insanity of Ken Block’s YouTube videos where he’s blasting his car sideways through an airfield obstacle course coming to near collisions with random objects.  Most can’t believe what they are seeing is real.  The truth is even with great movie editing; Ken Block has amazing car control skills.

As a road racer, my experience with car control has been on wet skid pads and scary situations on track, which usually ends with a mild heart attack.    “Happens to everyone”, I’m told, “that’s how you learn”, but that didn’t seem right.  How do you learn to fix a problem that isn’t experienced often?  Being obsessed with perfecting my own driving ability, I reached out to seasoned race veterans and other weekend track warriors for the answer to my car control problem.

After a week’s worth of researching, the solution was simple, go to rally school.  No other racing school on earth can provide an environment of changing grip levels and encouragement to go as fast as possible, while maintaining some level of control.  Mud drifting as some rally enthusiasts called it, was the solution to the car control issue.  The best place to learn? Team O’Neal Rally School.   If it’s good enough for Ken Block, then it’s good enough for me!

Nestled in the middle of nowhere aka Dalton, New Hampshire, is where you’ll find Team O’Neal Rally School.   Almost like finding a tiny needle in a large haystack, the school is buried within a maze of gravel roads and heavy tree cover on top a mountain.  In fact the school is so difficult to find that one of their instructors, Wyatt, had to meet us at the Hampton Inn located within town to guide us to campus on the very first day.

Once on school grounds, you are thrown back at the enormous size of the property.   A majestic site containing beat up Audi Quattros, VW Jettas, VW GTI’s, and Subaru’s that litter one side of the property while on the other side are the various courses chiseled through the tall thick trees.

To greet our very enthusiastic class is our lead instructor, Chuck.  With a direct no BS approach, Chuck our ex-military tobacco-chewing bear of a lead instructor, gives the class the 411 on what to expect during the next 4 days.  The best phrase to sum it all up, “Pay Attention”.  Obvious right?  That’s what I thought too…

Day 1 – Steering With Brake
On day 1 we kicked off the day with a morning classroom followed by in-car time.  The school tries to minimize classroom sessions, so students spend majority of the day in-car.   Classroom discussions during the first day were about vehicle dynamics, the principles of left foot braking, and any questions we had during our in-car time. Our in-car sessions were in FWD VW Jettas and GTI’s, with the purpose to learn left foot braking while coordinating steering and throttle to control the car through a slalom of mud and orange cones.  And if that wasn’t enough, improving reaction times and looking ahead to keep the car out of the ditch.  With each in-car session the instructors put us through various drills (late apexing, threshold braking, and brake & avoid) to help burn in the techniques learned in class.   With majority of the student cars spinning around or needing a tow rescue, day 1 was proving to be challenging for everyone.  Luckily we had an abundance of time to get enough runs in.  By the end of the day, I was left foot braking subconsciously all the way back to my hotel.

Day 2 – Steering with Throttle & Brake Anticipation, Compensation, and Timing

Highlight of Day 2, learning how to Pendulum Turn.  Honestly who wouldn’t want to learn how to use the “Scandinavian Flick” in a car?   Unfortunately we had to wait towards the end of the day to start learning how to pendulum turn a car.  The bulk of the day was spent more on mastering lessons taught to us the day before, which was learning to use left foot braking to rotate the car and steer into the direction of the skid.  Only this time we had to do it at a faster pace.  This all led up to my favorite drill of the day.

A cone setup on muddy ground was the foundation for the pendulum turn exercise.  “All you have to do is carry enough speed, look ahead to where you want to brake, lift off the gas, turn right, blip the throttle while looking at the apex, blip the brake while looking at the exit, throttle out” explained our instructor Wyatt.

One of the most difficult challenges on Day 2 was getting the timing right for the “flick” exercise.  Knowing when to brake to start rotation, when to apply the right amount of steering input to control slide, and knowing where you wanted the car to end up was challenging.   The good news is we ran this drill enough times to get consistently good.  At the end of the day, I felt comfortable making right or left hand turns using the notorious “flick”.

Day – 3 – Perfecting Techniques
Day 3 was filled with more in-car practice time, which led to the most challenging portion thus far, the school’s basic rally course.   This was exciting and nerve racking at the same time.  Unforgiving thick trees and unusually deep rocky ditches on certain corners meant making a mistake could hurt a little.   To get us prepared, the instructors setup drills that got us prepared for course.   Drills included our normal drills we ran through on previous days and our newest one, drifting through a blind corner.  Didn’t seem too hard to do, but the instructors had a little surprise up their sleeve.

Trying to test our reflexes, the instructors would place a barrel (“random cow” in the middle road is what instructors called it) on different locations on the blind corner leaving just enough room to go around without hitting it.   The challenge was to find the open path through as quickly as possible in order to rotate the car into position.  Sounds more complicated then it really is but during the drill everything seemed to be second nature.  With that said, out of the 4 -6 runs I went through, I managed to hit the barrel/cow a number of times. &nnbsp;

Day 4 – Mastering Techniques
Day 4 focused more daytime in-car.  With fewer students, the five remaining students (including myself) got to choose the preferred car of choice (Audi Quattro) and run continual drills for long periods of time with and without an instructor.    This of course improved our ability as a class and allowed the instructors to confidently allow us to run on the advanced course.

The advance course is longer in distance compared to what we were on prior and most importantly has a portion that goes uphill with a drop at the top that could hurt if a car should go over.   This is all followed by a steep downhill that merges into the original basic course we practiced on the day prior.  The advance course allows the car to carry more speed and heavily relies on all techniques learned over the past 3 days.  Now was the time to show how well you were paying attention.

With a couple of instruction laps done it was time to get behind the wheel.  Going through the course during the first bit was business as usual since it was part of the basic course we practiced on earlier, it was the up hill portion that got the heart rate going.  Going uphill as fast as you can in a bouncy beat-up Audi wasn’t the issue, it was the fact that I was building enough speed in order to drift at the top of what felt like Mount Everest with a 1000 foot drop (it really wasn’t that bad) and making sure the timing was good enough to make it through alive.  Luckily I managed to go through without a scratch.  Coming downhill required more concentration with steering inputs and being gentle with the brake.  Towards the bottom we came down to familiar territory, taking us through what I thought was the fastest lap time the school has ever seen.  Later the instructors were quick to dub me slower then their grandmothers, which meant they were very jealous of my school speed record.

All kidding aside, the day ended with big smiles on everyone’s faces.  There was a tremendous amount to learn from this school and I was amazed how they were able to teach us with the amount of time available.

Conclusion
The skills learned from this school really boosted up my car control confidence.  What used to be scary situations on track now have become great opportunities to use tools from my new car control toolbox.  Lap times on average came down by 2 seconds and my conformability within the car has risen to a new high.  The trick is to balance all of this to make sure overconfidence doesn’t enter the picture.

If car control is lacking for you, then you will be surprised by the results after attending Team O’Neal.