One day in mid-October, I got an email from Wyatt Knox, special projects director for Team O’Neil Rally School. A large group class scheduled for the end of the month had pushed, meaning the instructors found themselves with some unexpected free time, and did we want to come up, mess around in some rally cars, maybe make another video like the time we sent our sun-drenched west coast editor Chris Cantle into the frozen New Hampshire woods to learn some rally driving skills?
I absolutely love rallying, and Team O’Neil is arguably the best in the business when it comes to teaching those skills, but there were some issues. Personally, I’d already taken their extended rally driving course, and The Drive had already produced a video about it, and given the extremely short and fast-approaching window, we’d have to scramble to make it work, logistically.
“Did I mention that Sig Sauer Academy is up here in New Hampshire?” Wyatt asked, referring to the world-renowned training facility for one of the preeminent firearms manufacturers on the planet. “We’ve been doing some stuff with them lately, if you want to throw some guns into the mix.”
We scrambled.
The result was two days of what I like to call James Bond 101: a crash course in everything from offensive and defensive driving techniques and escape and evasion maneuvers to close- and long-range tactical shooting training from Scott Reidy, former Marine and SWAT veteran and current chief instructor at Sig Sauer Academy.
However awesome that sounds to you, it was a thousand times more awesome than that—just sheer I-can’t-believe-I’m-doing-this fun, while also being instructional and quite safe. And when the guys from Team O’Neil and Sig Sauer saw my permanent idiot grin, a light bulb went off: maybe other people would want to spend a couple days doing the most awesome course ever.
Hence, Cars and Guns: the peanut-butter-and-chocolate of high-adrenaline, grown-up fun. Get on that mailing list ASAP, and check back here for our upcoming multi-part series of the same name—coming soon.