Dave and I have been trying to get something going for rallyistas in Arizona for something like a year now. Actually, for more than a year, since this all got started shortly after the Prescott Rally in 2007. We’ve been out to potential venues, put together proposals for land owners, and been blown off or otherwise ignored repeatedly. We decided we were going to make something happen even if it ended up being nothing more than Dave and I driving down some dirt roads. Then [195] plowed a Kia and Dave got married. This isn’t another end of the month post about lost time, though.
In the absence of a proper venue, Dave and I have been faced with two options:
- Splitting the $500+ insurance and sanctioning costs between the two of us (not including venue).
- Bashing our heads against the wall trying to find 15-20 folks who would commit to entering an event that hasn’t been held in Arizona in years that they probably haven’t even tried.
I wonder if we’d have better luck finding the Dutchman mine.
Then it hit us. On any given weekend, you can probably spot a lifted 4X4 parked under the I-10 west of Phoenix and half a dozen dirt bikes and ATVs racing up and down sandy washes with names that hint that there might have, at some point in the distant past, been water flowing through them. On the 10 between Phoenix and Tucson, it’s not uncommon to spot a couple of 14 year olds racing through the scrub brush along the highway either. Dave and I got to thinking, “Why couldn’t we just do the same thing in our cars?”
Dave and I decided we were going to try to get at least a handful of people together to explore this idea and we set up a meeting at Mama’s Pizza in Tucson earlier this month. Much to our surprise, we had a whopping one person show up. Chad, who has since run into hard times due to the current fiasco we call our economy and can’t follow through with things, picked me up that Saturday morning and we drove to Tucson to talk shop and pick a date for our first ever [RAZ] Dirty Meet.
We discussed driving out to “The Playa” south of Tucson, but that would be a nearly five hour drive from Phoenix and a bit much for a Sunday. In the end, we settled on taking some 2WD friendly dirt roads out to a real, Arizona ghost town located between the two cities. We’ve got our date picked out and are looking forward to spending some time off the pavement in March. We’ve invited a couple of guys we’ve met before who have expressed interest in this sort of thing, but we’re prepared for it to be just Dave and I all the same.
We’re going to put the tarmac behind us and enjoy the dirty equivalent to what street car enthusiasts do probably every Saturday the weather cooperates – we’re going to cruise. If we find a wide open corner where it’s safe to take turns sliding around, we’re going to get sideways. If we find a possible location to have a rallyx, we’re going to see if we can’t find out who to contact about using the land. If nothing else, it will be nice to see that rooster tail of dust rising up in the rear view mirror again.
Pictures (and hopefully video) will be posted when we’re done!
In the glovebox:
Working Credo
