Alfie Element became a co-driver when he was just 17 years old, the UOG darts player has his dad to thank for his love of rally.
“My dad used to watch rallying in the 80’s every weekend and then started getting into codriving himself in the early 2000’s. Then I came along and “ruined his plans for co driving.” said Element with a smirk.
But Element didn’t expect to ever be in the co-drivers seat until his “best mate Joel, loved rallying as much as I did and one day he sent me a photo of a Renault Clio with a roll cage and bucket seats saying it’s his new rally car.”
But Element had to see his dream with his own eyes “I didn’t believe him for a second, he then turned up outside my house in it and asked me to co drive for him on an event.”
With a car, a driver and now a co-driver it was prep time for the pairs first event, Element revealed how much effort goes into getting a rally car ready “three and a half months prep for rally is quite a long time however when is your first event you don’t realise how many issues you’ll have, how many late nights you’ll have just all prep on the car, prep for the event and it was quite tough.”
Element continued “It really was tough but then after the first stage I’ve never felt so relieved that it was like would finally come such a long way to finally be able to be in a rally car on a stage was absolutely fantastic.”
“At the end of the event we cross the final finish line and we are both 17 at the time, all our friends and family were waiting there for us to across the finish line and me and Joel had tears in our eyes when we arrived” Element shared with a smile reliving his first rally event.
“Me and Joel said we have to do this for the rest of our lives because it was such a buzz that you get it is really brilliant.” said Element grinning ear to ear
But what’s rally without results so how did the pair do in their first outing the UOG darts player shared “we ended up finish something like 17th overall in a standard car. We’ve just too young lads up against machinery far more powerful.”
Sometimes in sports results in sport aren’t the most important thing and that was the case for Element and Joel John in their first rally.
