July 11, 2004 12:26 p.m.- Today is the day! I'm supposed to meet my Prince Charming, a 1976 Toyota Corolla later this evening and the wait is agonizing! I'm pacing around the house, waiting for the phone to ring snapping at everyone who gets in my way…It's terrible! God I hope I'm not like this on the track. I mean I really like this car- I like the way it looks and I like the price. Looking around for another car would set us back at least another two weeks and what will hopefully be my first rally is going down in six weeks, and we've got to factor in a week for prepping the car and I would like to spend at least one week behind the wheel, and factor in a week for the SCCA ProRally in Maine and that leaves me only one week to prepare! And that week just happens to be the week that school begins again! *Crosses fingers* Please come… 4:00 p.m.-I'm at Tombstone now and I'm sitting in front of the TV with Leon and we're watching him drive in the Rim of the World SCCA ProRally that he taped off of SpeedVision. I'd imagine that I'm just as hyped up/nervous/excited right now as Leon was when he nearly won the event there. (I'll never forget him driving up to my time control and yelling at us unmercifully for a larger dust window!) I wonder what the WRC drivers felt when they got their first car and try not to imagine what would happen if the tow truck broke again… Finally! A phone call-Prince Charming is only ten minutes away! I don't know what to expect. I'm going to be driving it- how will it drive? Will I completely suck as a driver? I go into the bathroom to chill out, take a deep breath and try to remember the 5 million point inspection that my little mechanic brother told me to perform with my untrained eyes… 4:30 p.m.- He's here! Is it love at first sight? Yes. Is it love at first drive? Let's see. Leon takes the wheel first and puts Prince Charming through his paces in the gravel parking lot, letting the rear wheel drive push the car through corners. He barrels through parts of the rally cross track, charging through the car-width-wide dirt path and the dust clears up a bit to reveal a WALL!!! Leon daftly steers away from the hazard, drops us through the drifting corner and around the oil towers then stopping the car and offering me the driver's seat. I always feel like an incompetent nincompoop after switching seats with Leon. It's one of those really good humbling feelings that keeps us all in touch with reality. The first thing I notice is something I'm sure every female driver notices in a new race car- the seat is way too far back! I have to sit up on the edge of the seat to reach the pedals and I end up having to grip the nice Momo steering wheel for dear life just to keep my butt from falling back into the Austin Powers-style velour upholstered Corbeau seats. Alcantera, I immediately think. Well maybe later…

I've never driven a rear wheel drive car before. Yeah my brother Mike just bought a 1993 Toyota MR-2 and he's given me a few rides in it. But drive it- hell no! It's a big sister- little brother thing. I take Prince Charming through a few laps around the concrete barriers. Lisa meet Over steer, over steer met Lisa. I always thought people who said you could drift just by downshifting were full of it, that it was just something out of Initial D, but I was wrong. Prince Charming likes to get sideways and will do it at the drop of a clutch. I got the hang of driving out of the seat like Petter Solberg driving his Impreza while hanging out the window and began to go faster around the barrier. Just as I was getting comfortable with that, Leon told me to do some doughnuts. Just between you and me, I had never done a doughnut before today! Okay, remember all of those drifting videos on the internet- full throttle, steering wheel all the way over. It really was that easy! I didn't think of closing the windows before I began, so I ended up with a mouth full of dust but who thinks of that when you're throwing a car around in a circle for the first time!?! 5:15 p.m.- Leon declared that it was time to move on to the rally sprint track. That track is really tight and runs through the paintball park so you go off, you're liable to hit spools, trenches, plywood houses and old disintegrated cars covered in slimy paintball goo. Ew. The first lap was very slow, with Leon providing good corner commentary and me wondering if I can do this going more than 15 mph. The second lap saw 3rd gear and my little dirty habit-downshifting and keeping my foot on the clutch, thus sending Prince Charming down a nasty corner in neutral faster than Leon had ever taken it! You know its bad when you scare Leon! I have spent a great many years with Bark my little white VW Jetta and have picked up some bad habits with him that won't fly with Prince Charming. Nick, Prince Charming's owner, told me that I'd rarely have to use the brakes with the car and the hand brake almost never. Prince Charming drives with his gear box and engine. I try again at the next corner. I'm better, but the engine noises freak me out. I mean it's totally stupid, but that shift from 3rd to 2nd just sounded like it hurt. Well for Bark, yes, but Prince Charming is ready and willing for my abuse. That's one hang up that I'll have to get over. We made another few laps and each time I got a little braver, went a little faster… didn't want to get out!!! Leon wanted his turn and I abdicated the driver's seat ready to see what he'd make Prince Charming do. I was really impressed. He's like the Horse Whisperer of cars or something! Seeing that he could make Prince Charming slide around turns and tackle the straights showed me that I could do it, too, with a lot of practice! And that's when I knew that Prince Charming was the rally car for me. : ) Everyone was glad that I liked the car. Nick would be sad to see him go, but he has a new baby now, a big old Subaru that will have to just try to beat Leon and his Evo in the open class. We always joke that I'll end up passing them all when I go by during a rally! I hope so! Well I think I started out well in Mexico, passing Sebastian Loeb on SS 5… So what if he had no oil pan? I was driving a Dodge! And that's when all of my rally fantasies began jumping through my head… I'm not going to be getting any sleep tonight! We gave Nick a deposit and he promised to have Prince Charming for us by the end of the week. Wow. So I have a car. This is so incredibly cool. I am very overwhelmed. And only four months ago I was in Mexico dreaming about what it would be like to drive my own rally car. I want to scream and cry I am that happy. But there is one person without whose help none of this would have been possible, and that is of course, Leon! I am so very grateful for his help. I can't begin to thank him enough for finding me my own Prince Charming! Back to Diary of a Driver.