FanNation

A New Racer Head

May not seem like much of a topic for a blog post, and I certainly haven't posted in a while, but I thought it would be worth welcoming our new group member, Bandit's Vitals. Welcome aboard, mate! Please make use of the message board and comments, and invite your friends. There's lots of room in here (seeing as we don't exactly have a crowd yet), so feel free to wander around and make yourself at home.

Pace Yourself

So Heather B raised a good question in the forum. What about those pace notes that the co-drivers are reading from? First, a little explanation of the WRC system for the uninitiated:

WRC cars often travel over 100 mph on courses that can be paved, gravel (dirt), even snow. The races are run in all types of weather, including rain, so the course can be extremely slippery. And these are not race tracks, these are real roads, usually backroads in the countryside, so you can imagine what the conditions are like.

Each team goes through the course one at a time, a few minutes apart. Each one is timed, and the fastest time wins the stage. A single event includes anywhere from 16 to 27 stages, over the course of three days. The fastest total time over all stages wins the event. 

There's a driver (duh), who keeps the car on the road while going as fast as possible through the course.

This is where the co-driver comes in. The co-driver is a navigator, in a sense. By reading the pace notes, the co-driver is alerting the driver so that he can anticipate what's coming up and brake early enough for a tight turn, or accelerate going into a straightaway before it's entirely visible. The co-driver has to tell the driver what's coming up early enough so that it can be anticipated and speed can be maximized, but not so early that the driver has to remember too much. It's a delicate balance, and really good rally teams have almost a mind-meld, such that the driver is fully committed to what he is told by the co-driver, often in spite of what he sees.

As for the notes themselves, there is a short-hand system of notation that is used to capture every feature on a recon run through the course. The notes are then read out in a somewhat expanded form by the co-driver. When a team is really successful, like Loeb and Elena, it's a pretty amazing thing to watch.

The notes look something like this:

MC1 100 KL2 100 KR2 200 SQL 100 KR4 50Y!->R2+ (D/C!) 100 +SQR 400 F->CR->KL4 100 MC2

Which translates to this:

Links for Rally Fans

Some handy links for rally fans (or for those who wish to be rally fans).

Start by downloading and watching some rally (requires a Bittorrent client). If you're not a fan yet, you will be.

The official site of WRC. Lots of paid content, but some good free overview stuff and a place to find schedules, etc.

A good (and free) WRC email newsletter from Rallye-Info.com. Stay up to date on the latest events and rally news.

The BBC has good rally coverage in their Sports section.