The Dolomites are a mountain range in the far northeast of Italy, part of the Eastern Alps.
Right next door is already Austria.
Rugged mountains, and a stunning view!
Tomorrow, I’m off to the Dolomites! For the first time in six years.
Six years ago.
I crossed to Italy wanting to see a real rally in the flesh. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that experience is what dragged me fully into the world of rallying.
And me, well — I was never exactly wealthy (though honestly, plenty of rally people tend to be… laughs),
and I’d been a physically weak child, and even once I was working, I’d been branded as someone who didn’t fit into society.
In circumstances like mine, I imagine plenty of people would choose to avoid others’ eyes and drift away from society. I know I spent years myself feeling like I could barely breathe.
But!
Meeting the world of rallying changed my life completely.
I found “the one place where I get to just be myself.”
Every single person I met through rallying, without exception, is a “challenger.”
Everyone’s “purpose for the challenge” is probably different, but the people who face their own “challenge to themselves,” reaching on past their limits, are, every one of them, kind.
They accept me exactly as I am.
Even while wandering their own limits themselves… there are so many people in that world who still cheer me on!
“What even are these people??”
“What even is this world??”
I simply couldn’t help falling in love with it. I couldn’t help driving.
With Peking to Paris now a year away, right at this moment I found I absolutely had to go back to the Dolomites, the place where it all began for me.
To reassure myself of who I really am.
Tomorrow, I set off.
I’m going to drive with everything I have. (I’ll report back on how it goes!)