Sitting on the startline as the breathing relaxed and the little Renault’s revs built, George Donaldson found himself overcome with emotion – not typical for a man who describes himself as “stony”.
But all those 40-year-old memories of starting out in rallying were about to hit him like a wave.
His daughter was seconds away from becoming a member of the club. She was about to become a rally driver – and nothing could’ve made George happier.
“And I can tell you categorically that she was way better than I was on my first event,” he laughs.
Rallying was part of Samantha Donaldson’s life whether she liked it or not. With driver turned team manager George as her father, she grew up with her dad regularly travelling the globe with some of the world’s biggest car manufacturers and inevitably hearing the stories that came with it.
George Donaldson spent many years working for Toyota Team Europe (Photo: Girardo & Co. Archive)
But rallying, she thought, was never going to be her thing. It was out of reach – something normal people just don’t do.
“I was really excited leading up to turning 17 just to be able to drive on the road. That was a major goal,” she tells DirtFish.
“I basically put everything to the side and I wanted to drive on the road. Obviously I was aware of what my dad did and what he was involved with, but I never really thought… it was almost like I never thought that I would be able to do it.
“So I never really put myself in that situation.”
An autotest changed everything. Experiencing the thrill of speed and adrenalin of competition, Samantha wanted more. A plan was hatched to get her in a rally car.
November marked her true epiphany. We’re back to that startline, with Samantha about to launch herself into her very first rally stage at the Kinloss Winter Stages in northern Scotland, with George as her co-driver.
Samantha and George ready for the off on Samantha's first ever rally
“I have to say it was very, very poignant and reflective in those last few seconds of the countdown, so much so I forgot to press my own stopwatch,” George says.
“I was just thinking ‘this is amazing’, and my mind did cast back to my friends and my co-driver on my first event. And the very first startline, which I can remember very, very clearly, it was a stage called Kirkhammoor, a little forest in Scotland, and there were mountains of gravel, basically, the stage was so badly cut up.
“We were in this little Mini that was far too low down to the ground – it was a bloody disaster! But we managed to make it around all those stages.
“It was remarkable to be there as Samantha started her journey, and I was so happy to be able to give her that insight so she didn’t have to worry about anything except driving quickly. So the feeling was very reflective, very pleased and happy to be able to do it.”
As expected for her first time, Samantha was more nervous than excited, but once she got going she began to settle into a rhythm.
“I was trying not to get myself in too much of a state,” she confesses. “So I was kind of trying to remove myself from the situation, but leading up to the start time, you know, nerves starting, I was kind of like, ‘Oh, wow, this is it.’
“I don’t think I was really thinking so much in the first stage, or even the first two stages, but there was, I think, times when I could feel I was pushing, maybe getting a bit out of my comfort zone, which is what obviously I was trying to do.”
Samantha showed great promise on her first event as a rally driver
George was very impressed with what he witnessed, as the Donaldson pairing made up 33 places on their seeding and got through all five stages and 57 miles with just one spin to speak of.
“We were cracking on – it was great,” he smiles. “Pushing on at the top end of third and even into fourth gear on long, slippery corners with massive puddles. And there’s a couple of times myself I was genuinely thinking, ‘This is going to be tight.’
“It’s a good feeling. She was really getting the feel for it; the car was skipping around and she was dealing with it. I’m massively proud. Massively.”
Samantha meanwhile is still experiencing the high that comes off the back of rallying.
“I don’t know if that was me or not! It’s kind of like some sort of alter ego. Genuinely, it feels like I was out of body looking down at myself, like I’ve just done five stages of that,” she describes.
“That’s one of the things I said after, I think it was second or third stage: ‘This would be great if you could do this every weekend!'”
Unfortunately even the pros struggle with that, but Samantha’s already formulating a plan to do it all again.
Recently picking up a second job to earn more money (always a sign how badly someone wants it!), eyes are on a return to the Kinloss venue to really gauge her driving improvements with a debut in the forests also on the agenda.
But Samantha does already have plenty of loose-surface experience, thanks to her visit to DirtFish Rally School last year.
A three-day course at DirtFish Rally School enabled Samantha to hit the ground running on her debut
Taking on a three-day course behind the wheel of an all-wheel-drive Subaru WRX left her a far more confident, and capable, driver heading into her first rally, reckons George.
“I can say categorically that she would not have been able to have jumped into that car and gone deep into those corners on the brakes and then, you know, lifting off and then just turning and trusting the car to turn,” he says.
“The fact that she learned to slide and drift a car under braking and under power just translated directly to this. Even though it’s gravel to asphalt, to my mind, she was stepping right into it. When the car stepped out she didn’t get a fright, she just dealt with it and stayed on the brakes. So that was all DirtFish, I think, 100%.
“And the all-wheel-drive Subaru behaves somewhere between a front-wheel and a rear-wheel-drive car. So that experience that she got absolutely translated to her car, 100%.”
Samantha adds: “I’m forever grateful that I was able to do that course. The instructors are really brilliant at what they do and just exactly what my dad was saying – I wouldn’t… it’s just like the basics, like I didn’t know anything before learning it at DirtFish.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did at Kinloss if I hadn’t had that.”
