On 18th June I spent the day at Phil Price Rally school doing an intensive 1 day course and my BARS test. It was an early start from my house to get to the rally school for 8:30am. The course started with Phil giving an introduction to rallying. He talked through all the basics including warning signs, yellow flag procedure, stage starts and finishes, timing, lateness, safety equipment for the car, helmets and HANS devices, time cards, road book and pacenotes and the importance of marshals. He also explained the role of the co-driver. Following this everyone for the BARS test got given the test paper to complete. After this we had an introduction to driving the cars. Phil explained the techniques needed to drive sideways on gravel. Then it was time to go outside and get into the cars! For the first go we all got to do a few laps of the track to get used to the layout and how the cars handle. Whilst we were waiting between goes Phil drove each of us round the forest rally stage to get an idea of the route for later when we would get a chance to drive. The stage is brilliant, about 3 miles with lots of good corners and some fresh air drops! After going round the stage with Phil it was back down to the track to get some practice in the cars. I initially found it hard to use enough power to get the car sideways, but started to get the hang of it on my second and third go. It was then a case of building up some speed to drive more smoothly. By the time we stopped for lunch I thought I was going quite fast, but my dad had taken a video of me and it looked very slow! After lunch I tried to go faster but forgot all the techniques I’d learnt and spun off a few times. Bert and John the two instructors were very patient with me and kept reminding me what I needed to do. We all got to have a go at driving round the forest stage with Phil in his dual control car. It was a bit strange going round in a dual control car. Phil had already done a lot of the braking and steering before I had chance to, which was probably a good thing! I really enjoyed going round the stage, it was good to try and practice some of the techniques I’d learnt on the track. Towards the end of the course we did some timed laps in both directions with penalties for hitting tyres or spinning off. My first laps were fairly steady, but I didn’t hit any tyres. My second laps weren’t so good and I spun off twice, which I wasn’t happy with. Thankfully we got to have another go to beat our slowest time and I managed to improve on mine a lot. I had an amazing day and passed my BARS test – a good job because I’d put in an entry for the JRT Enville stages on 2nd July before going to the rally school day! I’d like to thank everyone at Phil Price rally school for a brilliant day and excellent tuition. I can really recommend it to anyone looking for a good rally school (whether you want to do the BARS test or just have a rally driving experience). You get so much time in the cars and it’s really great fun. With the BARS test done I had my first event to look forward to!