Rally Monte Carlo Historic Vol. 1 was
about the thinking and the action behind how I've grabbed onto adventures and chances up to now.
Now, Rally Monte Carlo Historic Vol. 2 covers our account of the two-day pre-run, what's called a “recce,” before the brutal seven-day real event to come — a round trip covering 18 hours of driving.
Rally Monte Carlo is a genuinely brutal rally: the first day alone runs 23 hours from Reims toward Monaco, and from there another 3,000 km, with the final stage on day seven finishing in the middle of the night. So why did we do this recce before the real event?
People work hard to make their dreams and goals real, but not everything you wish for actually comes true, and there are times you have to keep course-correcting and accept some compromises.
But… the two of us — driver and co-driver, partners for years now — share this almost obsessive, borderline pathological refusal to compromise with each other, once we've decided on something, we see it through, completely.
Good thing the two of us are both a little unhinged in the head…(laughs)
Starting at dawn, we drove straight for nine hours down the road the real rally would take, and after arriving, we ran the course with the rally computer, failing a few times along the way — 18 hours a day ✖️ for two days.
With barely any time to eat, that nutritional soup I'd brought from Japan became a real lifeline…
 |
 |
Why do I do this to myself? My strength… my willpower… where does it even go?
We've driven plenty of historic-car world rallies before, but this Monte Carlo, a so-called “regularity” rally, was a competition category we'd never tried.
So it was basically starting over again from zero.
Isn't it better to lose having thrown everything you had at it, than to lose after compromising?
This partnership only works because we can both laugh together about being, honestly, extremely neurodivergentand this particular obsessiveness only works because neither of us depends on the other, and neither of us gives in either.No anger, no getting scolded… pushing right along that extreme edge — maybe that's only possible because the two of us really are a little unhinged? (laughs)
There's no landing point called “being satisfied” anymore — each of us just fights our own battle, giving everything toward one shared goal.
So, next time, Vol. 3 will report on the scrutineering venue
for the Monte Carlo Historic, finally about to start.
Being an FIA-recognized world rally, the strictness of the competition and the rules for entering mean this is nowhere near something you could enter as a casual hobby anymore. I want to bring you that side of it too.
Look forward to it!