Rally Life

This weekend was I found myself checking off another bucket-list item! My whole life I always thought it would be so cool to be a racecar driver. I finally made that dream a reality. Well, I learned how to race a rally car. The idea of driving around a circular track doesn’t interest me, but rally and dirt tracks do. I guess it’s close to my love of traveling via hiking or biking on the trails!

There is a ranch just south of Austin that hosts a rally racing school. I bit the bullet booked a half-day lesson last month. Kindly enough they hosted a rally cross the day after my lesson so I could put my new found skills to use. The only problem was that I wanted to rally my Subaru all the way home yesterday! I am still reflecting on the adrenaline that I had all day yesterday on my first time racing.

Can I tell you how many times I almost backed out? I lost count after like 100. I had to keep the tears from welling in my eyes almost as many times. That morning I was suffering from acute anxiety, and wanted to throw up. The unknown was taking over. What if I roll the car? What if I hit another car? How does this work? Will I succeed or make an ass of myself? All these thoughts were repeating in my head over and over. The “unknown” was killing me a slow death. If I know what to expect, my brain deals better with it. The day of the race, I did not know anything of what to expect.

Here’s what I did to alleviate some of the anxiety.

Talk To The Experts

I walked around talking to the other rally car drivers asking simple questions. I don’t remember what exact questions I asked but it diverted my mind from focusing on the “unknown.” I tried to educate my brain to alleviate the stress. The more I knew about the where, what and how, the better I felt.

Turn Your Fear To Focus and Breath

I have talked about this before, turning my fear into focus when I was whitewater paddling. I worked on using this concept here. Despite the fact that I was scared and nervous, I tried to focus on bringing the situation to river speed. When I was in the line up for the first run, I just took deep inhales/exhales to calm myself. The reality of it was that I could drive slow the first round until I built my confidence. Of course, when I go to the start line – it was game on! I took it somewhat slow, but it was a race after all!

Here’s a quick video of me learning!

Needless to say, I was a bit hesitant and it shows in the videos compared to the veteran racers. I didn’t care, I wasn’t there to win, only to experience what it was like to rally race. Done. Mission accomplished. And….now I want to go again!

Would you be interested in a rally racing experience? Please message me!!

Peace be with you this week. Diana

by Diana Proemm, CTRS

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