Six Star Magazine Six Star Magazine Winter 2010/2011 | Page 30

FEATURE

two schools are building on that
tradition by teaching genuine rally
driving techniques to students – using
real Subaru rally cars. Both schools are
great adventure travel destinations
where you can step out of a rally car
and step right into other sporting
activities such as mountain biking,
hiking and snowshoeing.
Located in Snoqualmie, about
50 km outside Seattle, the DirtFish
Rally School (www.dirtfish.com) offers
a variety of courses from a quick
introduction to driving on loose
surfaces to a full-on, 3-day rally driver
training program. The cars used
are a current-generation WRX STI

that is close to showroom stock
and a previous-generation WRX STI
that has been prepared to Group N
specifications.
The facility encompasses over
275 acres of land that was a former
paper mill and, eerily, was also used
as a film location for the TV show Twin
Peaks. There’s nothing scary about the
training, though, it’s just flat-out fun as
the instructors run students through
a number of drills that incorporate
proven rally-driving techniques to
boost car control skills.
The Tommi Mäkinen Rally School
(www.tommimakinen.net) is owned
and operated by the 4-time World
Rally Champion, who also oversees a
preparation shop that builds Subaru
rally cars for customers. The school
takes place year-round in Jyväskylä,

Finland, and uses some of the same
roads that the professional drivers
tackle during the famed Rally Finland.
The facility incorporates tarmac
and gravel roads and, of course, can
experience a lot of snow and ice in the
winter. The focus of the training is to
take the driver’s inherent sense of car
control and prepare him for driving
quickly in a real rally competition. (If
this doesn’t sound like a huge amount
of fun, check your pulse.)
Now that you have your car control
skills honed to a fine edge, what next?
Well, when you think of where you are
as a driver, it might be a worthwhile
exercise to equate yourself to the
2011 WRX STI.
This car was developed from
our learnings in the World Rally
Championship, so it’s a master on lowtraction surfaces such as gravel, snow
and ice. But it’s also been tested