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Brianne Corn has run up Pikes Peak on a bike, competed in international stage rallies, and built countless Subaru rally cars from scratch. She's seated next to me as I nudge her "Frankenscooby" Impreza up to the starting line one tentative clutch slip at a time. Ahead, there's a mile of fast sweepers, off-camber hairpins, and blind switchbacks hidden in the tall brush. The car's engine is straight from a balls-out rally Impreza that Corn recently totaled during an event in Mexico. She yells a final instruction over the exhaust rumble: "Drop it at 5000 revs and just go!"

Is she serious? Before I can think about it, the starting flag drops. I suspend all mechanical sympathy and follow her instructions, creating a deafening racket in the bare-metal interior and sliding my foot off the heavy clutch. With more than 350 hp pushing around one ton of weight, the Impreza spins all four tires in first gear. And second. And third.

We approach the first corner. I think I hear Corn tell me to keep my foot in it, but it's too loud to be sure. I crank the steering wheel nearly two turns left and hold on. Nothing happens. Then the front wheels grab and slam us around in our seats as I hurriedly spin the wheel to its other stop. The Impreza pivots in the space of its own length, and now I'm looking at the course through the driver's-side window.

In a second or two, we're out into a flat sweeper. I'm at full opposite lock all the way around, a 20-foot-tall vortex of Texas dust swirling in the Subaru's wake. Fifty-five seconds after we start, we blast past the finish cones with the wheels still scrabbling for grip. We slide to a stop near a pit lane filled with everything from a Mercedes 240D with diplomatic flags on its fenders to a brand-new STI still wearing temporary tags. Corn and I look at each other. Under my helmet, my mouth is hanging open. Then I start laughing. Hell of a ride.

Rallycross is essentially a big, occasionally fast autocross on dirt. It's growing nationwide because it offers 90 percent of the excitement of a stage rally for roughly two percent of the cost. You can run a bone-stock car, and many do, or you can build the rally replica of your dreams. Everyone's welcome. As with regional autocross competition, there are plenty of people willing to give spectators rides in their cars, and it's usually possible to borrow or rent a car if you don't want to risk rock chips on your daily driver.

The passenger ride I later took in that 240D confirmed what I suspected earlier in the Subaru: Rallycross is hugely entertaining no matter what you're driving. Any rally fan will find this a thousand times more rewarding than playing a WRC PlayStation game—and the cost is about the same. What the hell are you waiting for?

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