The only way you can under-rate rally driving is to have never, ever seen rally driving actually performed. Even the slower, tamer classes can get buck wild, and the full-on WRC cars are the four-wheeled equivalents of the Tazmanian Devil in the middle of a red mist rage. Driving one takes nerves of steel, zero self-preservation instinct, and from what we’ve seen over the years, a skillset that only comes with years of practicing how to drive like a delinquent with the cops in hot pursuit. Drag racing is fun, road racing takes skill, but rally racing takes big, clanking ones.
We might not follow rally racing well but we dig the abilities these drivers have and respect what they put themselves through when the pace notes are a touch off or when the driver has one too many cups of coffee in the morning before the race. A few hundred horsepower, four-wheel-drive and a murderous, frenetic pace equals a good time for driver and viewer alike. Don’t believe me? Just watch.Wil
Also being Finnish helps, since Finland seems to be the only country with a really serious driver education program…just go on YouTube and watch their training curiculum.