Thread: Winter Rally Racing

After watching the video showing all those crashes in another thread, it is even scarier to think about rally racing in the winter. Well, sure enough, this weekend in Atlanta, Michigan is the Sno*Drift rally. According to Rally America, it is the "traditional" bad weather event of the season. You can read about the Sno*Drift Rally and see the 2010 Rally America schedule at the links below.

Rally America Press Release 1/15/10, Rally Racing News

Combined Stage Rally Schedule 2010, Rally Racing News

Thanks for the links! I've been trying to find some American rally racing fanatics to get amped with me, but they're so hard to find around here.

Talk about a different mindset. Most racing circuits will pause the race or cancel if there's a bit of rain and here these guys are going and throwing themselves into the winter nonsense. I wonder what the percentage of cars that actually finish the race?

I know this looks dangerous and I would never do it! But it also looks like a ton of fun. I wonder how they know when they will have snow and winter weather.
I also wonder how many cars finish the race.

The worse about winter rallyes, beside getting stranded in a ditch at minus bleeping cold is the snow drifts, you want to hit them fast enough to go through them, but don't now if they are fresh (soft) or old (rock hard) when you hit them the car either gets launched or plows through a white curtain, with zero visibility and sliding around while you turn the steering wheel like a madman hoping the car is pointing in the proper general direction, all the while keeping your foot firmly planted to the floor on the accelerator hoping you don't get stuck. If nothing else the car, driver and even the co-driver all get a pretty good work out.
But I don't suppose that they have to worry to much about these things in major, national rallyes, just keeping it on the trail can be challenging enough

Sounds like you might have tried this before, oldcanuck. That definitely sounds like a description from someone who's been there and done that.

Speedster, this time of year in upper Michigan the one thing you can count on is snow.