Right! The first thing you need to ask is "How much money do I have to throw away?"
Quite seriously, even at the extreme bottom end of "rallying" ( and that covers a huge range of motor sport (more in a minute)), you'll end up spending reasonable amounts of cash...and once the bug has bitten...and it will, it can get very expensive very quickly!!
At the moment, in the UK there are effectively 2 1/2 types of rallying: stage, road, and the half - Endurance which is a mix of stage and road.
At the top end of stage rallying is the WRC, of which the Rally South Wales GB is the UK leg. Mega bucks and not a realistic prospect for 99% of us!
Below that, come a number of international and national championships, down to clubman level events. The key thing is that all the competitive mileage is on closed roads, forestry commission or military range tracks, etc, with any sections on public roads being non-competitive.
This is still an expensive way to go. Almost every crew will have some form of sponsorship and with good reason. A typical entry fee is £500 - £1k per event. Then you need to have a prepared car - roll cage, harnesses, seats, fire extinguisher, sump guard, wheels and tyres (budget £200 - £500 per event), and that's before you even get anywhere near tuning the car!! Talking of which, you'll need a car - Evo's or Scoobies are very popular, Mk1 or Mk2 Escort, Pug 206, Seat Leon, the list goes on…but all with a £3k - £10k+ price tag.
At the real bottom end, you can get away with something like a Pug 205, but a lot of the costs still remain.
A more cost effective alternative is road rallying.
This is much more into clubman territory. In Road Rallies ( aka Navigation rallies), most, if not all the competitive mileage is on open, public roads. Hence, most are run at night (it is much easier to see other cars coming and there is less traffic anyway). This is what I do quite a lot of.
One thing I want to say clearly and up front, is that this is NOT some grey legal area, with "racing" on the public roads. EVERY event is sanctioned by the RAC Motor Sports Association (the UK governing body for motor sports), the Police are informed and often closely involved in organising the event and depending on the size of the event, every house on the route (which could be 250 miles) will be notified and many personally visited. We also have insurance that specifically covers us for taking part in competitive events on public roads.
<gets off soap box>
To make the event "safe", the emphasis is placed on navigation rather than out and out speed. Each "section" is timed at an average speed of 30mph - so 8 minutes will be allocated to do a 4 mile section. You are heavily penalised for arriving early (i.e. going too fast), compared with arriving late.
Within road rallies, there are several levels of event. So called "12-cars" (because that's the most competitors) are run by many motor clubs on a monthly basis through the winter (Oct to Mar). They're a great place to start. Relatively short - 60-80 miles, a couple of hours on a Friday evening, there's no need for a high performance car, or even big lights! One of my best results was in my wife's Volvo (but please don't tell her!!). You don't even need a Competitor license, just join your local club. If you've any connection with the Civil Service you can join the csma - they've got groups all over country that run 12-cars.
In case you're thinking wandering around the countryside at 30 mph sounds a little boring, don't forget I mentioned AVERAGE speed above! To find your route, you're given a series of clues to plot on an OS map. If you take a minute or two to solve the clues, suddenly you've got to maintain an AVERAGE of 40 rather 30 mph…along country roads…in the dark…you can see how it actually start to become quite fun, and as the videso lopez linked showed!
There are a couple of good guides to Road Rally on the web. This is, without doubt THE BEST:
eumsc.eusu.ed.ac.uk/guides/nav_rally/RRGuide.htmAnd then these are quite good:
www.ukmotorsport.com/road_rally.htmlwww.ukmotorsport.com/hartmc/rr_course.htmlFor stage rallying you need to complete a BARS (British Association of Rallydrivers) course to get you MSA licence, whereas for road rally you can do club events with just a normal DVLA licence and club membership, and the bigger events with an MSA "non-race Nat B" which doesn't need a special test, other than a medical questionnaire and about £40.
However, if you really like the idea of stage rallying, but can't afford it (like me!!), then the latest formula is called Endurance rallying. It is a half way cross - competitive road sections, linking "Selectifs" (stages to most people). You must have harnesses and a roll cage, but there are lots of restrictions on car mods: under 1400cc petrol or 2.0 diesel, no turbo, no mods to the engine or brakes and reasonable entry fees: The Chelmsford Mid-summer is about £150-200 (an afternoon of "stages" and then all night of road rally!!), the South Hams (Devon) is £300. There are about eight Endurance events across the country each year as well as the mighty Lombard Revival which is a massive five-day, 1500 mile marathon!!
Hope this all helps a bit!