"Left! Left! Left!"

My co-driver was screaming at me as we came thundering toward a fork in the road. I went right. Then I drove another 50 feet before slamming on the brakes. I sat there dazed for a moment while J. Jon Wickens, a guy who's sat in the right-hand seat with some of the best in the business, screamed some more -- really colorful stuff, something about backing up and getting back on the route.

This was not some weird Simon-says game. Last August, I was driving in the Sports Car Club of America's Ojibwe Forests ProRally in Bemidji, Minnesota, as part of the Hyundai factory team.

Rallies -- particularly SCCA ProRallies such as this one -- are intense multiday events held on unpaved forest roads. Drivers run one at a time through some 20 timed sections known as stages, often well into the night. The stages vary in length from one to 20 miles, and the driver with the lowest combined time for all the speed sections wins. There's not much traction at the best of times, and the route is usually bordered with trees or big rocks or both. If you're going fast, the car is going sideways most of the time.

To make it more interesting, every twist and turn of the course is a new experience. The teams aren't allowed to practice on any of the stages, and the drivers rely on their co-drivers to call out hazards and turns -- "Left! Left! Left!" for example -- that are cataloged in course notes supplied by the event organizers. The notes are rarely comprehensive and may only mention 20 percent of the nasty surprises waiting down the road. For the rest, the driver relies on his or her experience and skills, balancing speed against risk.

Racing with the Hyundai folks was a good choice because Hyundai has a strong presence in rallying. Since 1995, Hyundai aces Paul Choiniere and Noel Lawler have won SCCA's overall ProRally drivers' championship five times, first driving modified Elantras in 1995 and 1996 and since then piloting a Tiburon. Choiniere races in the open class, where liberal modifications are allowed. His current Tiburon sports nonproduction equipment such as four-wheel drive and a 400-hp turbocharged version of the car's 2.0-liter four.

My ride was a little less exotic. Hyundai supplied a production-class Tiburon that was stock except for required safety items -- a roll cage, a fire extinguisher, and racing seatbelts -- plus an aluminum belly pan, auxiliary lights, deeply treaded Michelin dirt tires, and stiffer springs and shocks.

The first day of racing started at 5:30 p.m. and didn't end until well after midnight -- seven stages covering nearly 50 miles on soft gravel roads. The starting order is based on previous race performance. Since I was the only rookie, I started dead last -- 57th.

And although I was a rookie and this was my first experience with this kind of racing, I wasn't totally green, thanks to a prerace day with Tim O'Neil, owner and operator of Team O'Neil Car Control Center (603-823-5558; www.teamoneil.com). O'Neil taught me one of the most powerful car-control techniques I've ever learned -- left-foot braking, which allows a driver to predictably slide a car through slippery turns and is essential for making time on low-adhesion surfaces.

Even with a day's practice, I was still feeling tentative, so I took it easy the first day, figuring the surest way to get the most seat time -- and practice -- would be to keep the car on the road. That strategy was working fine until the last stage of the day when, in the middle of the turn, I went for the brakes, and -- oh my god I'm gonna die -- the pedal went right to the floor. Luckily, I kept the car on the road and limped back to the pits. The problem was a frayed brake line that had probably been bumped and moved by a flying rock and then rubbed on the front strut. Despite a constant pounding from ruts, bumps, and flying stones, the failed brakes were the only mechanical problem I encountered.

For the second day -- nine stages, 66 miles total -- I steadily increased my pace as I became more comfortable with left-foot braking. I'd also learned to rely heavily on Mr. Wickens. A veteran co-driver, he called out every hazard in the route book flawlessly, occasionally egging me on when he thought I could go faster.

The rally ended with remarkable finishes for the Hyundai team. In the standings, Choiniere and Lawler finished first and second overall in Hyundai Tiburons, and John Buffum took third in an Elantra. As the team's little brother, I was a bit embarrassed by my 25th-place finish, but it was good enough for a third place in the production class. Maybe I'll do better next time. But I did learn a lot. Left-foot braking, for one. And that co-drivers are a special breed.