#Education

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...

As long as OHV classes have been around, they've largely stuck to the traditional model of tangible, printed-on-paper certificates that you have to keep safe and dry, on your person wherever it is that you go exploring. Recently, Utah and its Division of Outdoor Recreation announced they have stepped into the 21st century and are now offering a Digital Wallet option for certificate holders, which will help set the stage for how this process works in the future.