Jake Lipman

10/22/2014
Mrs. Thomas
URWT1101
Rally Racing
Rally racing can be summed up as; real cars, driving on real roads, real fast. There is no other
motorsport that is so raw and so grounded in the roots of auto racing. It starts with a car
straight off the showroom floor that is then built into one of the fastest, most versatile and
safest race cars on the planet. Each car is piloted by a driver and co-driver. The co-driver reads
pacenotes which are detailed notes of every turn, straight, jump along the route. The goal is to
make it from point-A to point-B as quickly as possible. The routes of the race are on all public
roads and are split up into stages. The timed stages are the ones that count where the driver
has to drive as fast as possible. The faster the time the more points the team gets. These races
take place all across the globe in every condition imaginable; from Greenland in the ice and
snow to the deserts of the African safari to the dirt roads in Finland, America and all over the
world. So what does this translate to? It translates to the most incredible experience for fan
and driver.
Let me set the scene for you: You are standing on the side of a snow covered mountain
road in the Swiss Alps. Youre looking out over the vast, grey, snow enveloped, straight-off-apostcard landscape with your back to the mountain. It seems like the quaintest, most peaceful

and beautiful place in the world. Youre bundled in your favorite Norwegian coat, wrapped in a
scarf, fur hat to match, with a cup of hot chocolate warming your hands just taking in the
scenery; What could make this moment any better? you ask yourself. Just then, you hear
something in the distance, getting closer, it sounds like David and Goliath battling to the death
except David has a machine gun and Goliath has mad cow disease. Each sporadic burst of
Davids machine gun is returned by a desperately ferocious roar from Goliath. You lean off the
mountain and turn your head down the road where you quickly spot multiple pairs of bright
headlights, their beams sweeping back and forth along the twists and turns, fixed in a tight
array on the front of a colorfully striped and lettered, heavily modified Ford Fiesta. Snow
billowing out from the cars extra-wide bodywork as the studded tires dig, claw and fight for
every last bit of traction. The whitewash whipped into a long frosty tail, distorted by the air
coming off the huge rear wing and illuminated by the glow of the taillights and the frequent
bursts of flames from the exhaust as the anti-lag pops, cracks and bangs coming into the turns
in perfect harmony with the engines raw grows and screams as it powers through them. It is a
feast for the eyes and ears but only until the car rounds the corner where you are standing, hot
chocolate in hand, right on the apex. Right then, it suddenly becomes a full sensory experience;
you feel the barrage of mini explosions as they fire out of the exhaust, the tire studs clawing
through to the tarmac, you hear the brakes squeal and the transmission clunk as the driver
prepares to round the turn as quickly as possible. Your back against the rock, your eyes glued to
the diabolical machine tearing right towards you. Deaf from the noise, your heart jumps and
you tense up as the car comes sliding, tail-out, inches away from your very eyes. Headlights
parallel to your knees. Its a moment so amazing, it seems to go in slow motion. You see past

the lights as you look your favorite driver face to helmeted face. You feel the motion of the car
pulling you along its arc. You notice all the details that make the moment come alive and you,
feel more alive then the day you were born. This is just an example of a handful of epic
moments that happen during the craziest, most intimate sport in the world. This is rally racing.

This is a Facebook entry I made pertaining to the video showed below. In the video it
shows a rally driver who rolls his car over at speed then gets out and with help from spectators,
rolls the car back over which he then restarts and continues racing to win the stage. This is
why I want to rally. Nobody in any other sport goes harder than a rally driver. I stated in my
post. I made this post not only because I like to share things that interest me but because I was
hoping to spark interest in rally racing in some of my friends who were not into it. Trying to play
on logos with the fact that a rally driver can flip their car over, flip it back and still win the stage.

I was although hoping to evoke some pathos through my statement, Nobody in any other
sport goes harder than a rally driver. To my younger audience I thought the phrase go hard
would resonate with them and evoke that emotion so that they could start to build an idea and
an appreciation for rally racing. I also clearly make an argument that rally racers are the most
persistent and unshaken of all athletes in that same statement. All said and done my Facebook
post is making a strong statement about rally racing and how I feel about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjILuvJ6OQ4
The Evolution Of Rallying: 50 Years Sideways, is a one and a half hour film on YouTube
that was directed by Helmut Deimel and produced in 2002. I wasnt able to find much
information on Deimel but I was able to find his company, Highspeed Films, which is his online
store for the videos and books that he creates not surprisingly all about rally racing. He created
an amazing film that captures the beauty of rallying in every single bit of its glory and essence
without skipping over any details of the sports history. It is chop-full of stunning visuals, mindblowing facts and most importantly the sound! Certainly the stunning visuals and sounds were
put there to really play on the audiences emotions and it does the job! It is very well directed
with smooth transitions and good audio-visual coordination. The narrator sounds like an older
British gentlemen whose voice resonates with an air of wisdom and fascination that gently pulls
in the audiences attention. You can tell from the emphasis that Helmut puts on the beauty and
the spirit of rallying that he is trying to persuade the audience to fall in love with it just as much
as he has. He is trying to appeal to the audiences emotions but he does that through logic as
well. Showing cars driving through unimaginable conditions and teams spending unbelievable
amounts of money to complete a race in the most epic fashion. Rallying defies most logic and

Helmut does a great job of capturing that aspect and coordinating that into an emotional
response from the audience. Compared to my Facebook post, his appeal is not much different
considering we both tried to appeal to our audiences emotions through logic as well as audio
and visual techniques. Helmut does an incredible job of capturing rally racing in all of its glory
and essence. So incredible that if someone who knew nothing about the sport watched the
video in its entirety, they would surely have a strong opinion on it afterward. Helmuts careful
bombardment of visual and audio stimulation combined with his logical appeals does a great
job of capturing the audiences interest.
http://jalopnik.com/5497042/how-a-500-craigslist-car-beat-400k-rally-racers
The article I chose to represent rally racing was How a $500 Craigslist car beat $400k
rally racers, from the popular car blog Jalopnik. The article was written by Sam Smith, who is a
self-made writer that stays fairly private, now a writer for Road & Track magazine. The article
was not only the most inspirational racing piece I have ever read but it is also the most popular
article on Jalopnik with over 1.3 million views to date. Smith tells the story of Bill Casewell, an
ex-investment banker with an MBA, a large savings account, no real job and a dream. The two
are friends so they communicated through text and email throughout the happening of the
story so it is told as a detailed recollection from Smiths point-of-view. The person manor in
which this paper was written in adds to its authenticity and emotion impact on the reader.
Casewell started rally racing after he lost his job during the great recession. His bank accounts
were big enough for him to fund his own vacation where he would search for his calling in life.
He loved to race cars in dirt as a kid so he started doing it again but instead of finding trails in
the woods he was signing up for amateur rally events. Casewell was instantly obsessed. He

bought an old BMW 3-series for $500 and taught himself with the help of friends how to work
on it. He taught himself how to weld and made a roll cage in his car to FIA specification, the
largest and strictest of race sanctioning bodies. This, along with the countless other
modifications he performed to his car, prepared him to accidentally enter into Rally Mexico, a
part of the World Rally Championship, the largest, most prestigious rally series in the world.
Casewell goes on to finish, placing 3rd in his class even though he was only a 1 man team, not
counting his co-driver who could only contribute to navigating the route. He had broken his car
multiple times through the race, fixed it himself and he was racing against half-million dollar
race cars with equally expensive teams and equipment. Its a story of the pursuit of happiness,
the pursuit of a dream, the perseverance. The whole story in and of itself evokes quite a lot of
emotion in the reader. With the appeals to logic in the details, Smith is able to play on the
readers logos and pathos. Making a connection between reader, writer and character in a nonfiction story of rally racing triumph is a feat in and of itself. One that Smith pulls off flawlessly in
my humble opinion. This connection imbeds emotions of rally racing and thoughts of chasing
dreams deep into the readers mind.
http://infoweb.newsbank.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/resources/doc/nb/news/10EEACB706468D
58?p=AWNB
The peer-reviewed article I chose was, Triple Caution! Loose Surface! Flying Finish! by
Preston Lerner, a well-established motorsports journalist who writes for the New York Times,
Sports Illustrated, Automobile and Popular Science. The piece is a first person account of a pro
rally race taking place in the U.S. Lerner sets the scene and provides plenty of info to keep the
reader on track. His accounts were very visual and he elaborates on them greatly to appeal to

the readers logic. His main point was to show the reader how big rallying is starting to get in
America and how it is straight foreword even affordable to get into rally racing today.
Compared to Sam Smiths Jalopnik article, Lerner does a better job of painting a picture of
modern day rallying and how the reader can relate or participate in the sport. I think his article
was written with that goal in mind so it is no surprise. His use of parallel structure, engaging
visuals and simple diction help communicate his point to the reader. Lerner wants to get
readers thinking, talking and doing rally. Through his careful writing, he achieves this goal.

Works Cited
Lipman, Jake. Jake Lipman shared EJ207s video: Classic Subaru flips over, still wins stage. This
is why I want to rally. Nobody in any other sport goes harder than a rally driver. Facebook.
August 22, 2014 [October 22, 2014https://www.facebook.com/jake.lipman.14]

The Evolution of Rallying: 50 Years Sideways. March 1, 2011. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjILuvJ6OQ4. October 22, 2014

Smith, Sam. How A $500 Craigslist Car Beat $400K Rally Racers Jalopnik. March 22, 2010.
Web. October 22, 2014.

Lerner, Preston. "Triple Caution! Loose Surface! Flying Finish! Rally racers in super-modded
street cars follow their own Cliffs Notes to navigate rocky dirt roads full of gullies and blind
curves. The rawest form of racing is finally gaining traction in the U.S.." Popular Science 1 Oct.
2003: 88. NewsBank. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.