#DrivingSchool

Believe it or not, off-road riding is not for everyone. (I don't get it either...) But at ATV.com, we like to think of powersports as the gateway to grime – in the best of ways. One such person is my very own big sister, Gigi. An avid outdoorsy mushroom hunter, rock collector, and road cyclist who, as it turns out, hates becoming muddy or dusty. So, I thought it would be fun to put her in a UTV and try to evangelize her into the Church of Dirt.

So, not too long ago, she joined me at DirtFish Rally School in the Pacific Northwest to learn some performance driving skills from their expert [WRC] rally instructors, then apply them to side-by-sides. While it was me who attended the three-day All-Wheel-Drive (AWD) class (in a Subaru, no less), Gigi was given a private, albeit abridged, lesson from the lead coaches before taking hold of the wheel. And that's all she needed to start ripping through the backlot of the facility.

No, she didn't go straight to the dealership and put down a deposit on a fresh SxS afterwards. But she did report having a great time in her subsequent story from the experience, and I suspect her view of being in the muck is a bit less muddy...

My sister Gigi and I have a many things in common, but up until recently, her love of bicycles and my love of dirt never crossed over. When I was given the opportunity to attend DirtFish Rally School (dream), to really round out the story I wanted to tell, we would need a "control". To show that the lessons you can learn from performance driving – even in a rally car – could apply quite seamlessly into driving side-by-sides off-road, I needed someone to join us who had little to no experience with these vehicles or off-pavement terrain. We were in the Pacific Northwest, my sister lives in Portland, and she's the furthest person from a pro UTV racer I could think of, so... Here we are. And, I think, it went pretty well.