Rally Schools in Britain

In late 1989 I decided to establish myself in Motorsport full time. I returned to Britain for a holiday, and to investigate options to make Rallying my life. I started by establishing Rally Schools International 23 Miles south of London, England, as a Corporate Rally Drive Day Centre for Rally training and entertainment. I began with l Lada Samara Rally car, which quickly grew to a fleet of fast Ford Escorts and 4wd Turbo Ford Sapphire and Sierra Cosworths. We also had a Peugeot 205 GTi and some genuine "Works" Nissan 240 RS's in our factory, as well as David Williams's Ford Sapphire Cosworth 4WD Turbo. He was the gentleman behind the success of Richard Burns, who became the second British Driver to win a World Rally Championship after Colin McRae. We also employed Ron Hill who was also sub-contracting for a certain David Richards at the time, who was building up a business called Prodrive, that has become a multi-million dollar company operating the entire Subaru World Rally Team, as well as Formula 1 teams. We had clearly come to the right place, and these associations have become of great assistance to us in recent years. We began by running the Rally School for 2 days per week in 1989, which became 7 days a week by 1991, and we also began undertaking corporate drive days for major UK companies, for 100-200 people each time, and including Aerobatics, Go-Karts and Formula 1 cars etc.

Rally Schools in Australia

In 1992 I felt assured that we had been exposed to enough cold weather and grey skies, and so I sold most of the British operation, and headed back to Perth, Western Australia to establish the first of a series if Rally Drive Day Centres here. I began with 1 Suzuki Swift GTi Rally Car, which we used alongside our new Australian Rally Car, a near new Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 Group N Class car (showroom specification... ish)

Rally Drive Days, and Gift Voucher Sales

As time progressed, it seemed only natural to me that the Rallyschools that we had started doing in Perth, and were now doing in Sydney, should expand and become more popular. At this time, a company called Adrenalin Club approached us and asked if they could resell our service by way of Gift Vouchers, and take a 20% commission. We agreed and then built and purchased more Rally Cars to cater for the increased demand. We also undertook an active PR campaign to aid the sales, as well as attending all of the "Big Boys Toys" Exhibitions with our cars. In April 2000, we received 11 minutes on Channel 9's prime time Getaway Show, and this caused unprecedented national sales. We opened a branch of my business in Victoria, and later ( in 2001) another branch in Queensland. We embarked into building enough Rallyschool cars to place 3 or 4 into every major state of the country except Western Australia. We were absolutely flat out by then, and also had a very busy factory in Rydalmere, near Sydney, selling and servicing cars, as well as doing specialist conversions, and preparing Rally Cars for clients, which we began running in events alongside my Rally Car.

Rally Drive Day Expansion, and "Gifting"

During 2001 another major retailer of Gift Vouchers was born. Naomi Simson started Red Balloon Days and quickly established it as the main Australian purveyor of "gifting". She asked me to join as one of the first experience providers to her company, and within a short space of time was selling many gift vouchers on behalf of Extremedriving.Net. As a result, we abided by her request to expand our rallyschool operations, and opened another branch in Western Australia, where we had started back in 1992. Red Balloon Days, and it's later subsidiary Godo have continued to supply our business with clients, although in early 2008, we have chosen not to entertain "Gifting" clients quite so much any more, and we are no longer associated with Red Balloon Days as a result, preferring our new ventures which concentrate more upon the heart of Rallying.

The business is now very very busy with our own clients, which now leads us on beautifully to the next phase of our motorsport ambitions. In a sense, all of this was just the beginning, as we have reached the end of that original aspiration. We also opened the doors in South Australia, and so we now have Rally cars, factories, staff and track facilities in all major states of Australia.