Navigator?

  • Thread starter Thread starter dbartucci
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dbartucci

dbartucci

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I have a question for rally fans that I can't find an answer to.

The navigator reads his notes to the driver telling him when the next turn is and what kind of turn it will be. So my question is, where does the navigator get his notes from? Do they practice on the course and he takes notes, does he go out and walk it?

Help!
 
In prorally and all other national rally events, the notes are provided for you by the event orginisers, but most co-drivers add their own notes ontop of those.

In the WRC I believe that the co-drivers write the notes themselves during the recce. I remember hearing that during japan in 2004, they didn't have old pace notes because it was a new rally. So I guess they do them during recce :)
 
Each driver/Codriver has their own variation of pacenotes and codes. In most rallys they will slowly drive the course first and disscuss each corner, ditch, straight and decide on the best route/speed use. The navigator writes them down as they go.
 
Strange, I always thought that they were given a topographical map/route/course that they added notes to, or something. I remember seeing one of the Canadian Rallies in BC and the co-drive kept saying "maybe" at the end of his description, so maybe they're given rough outlines of the course? I've also kind of wondered this, but I'll bet PunkRock knows.
 
The reason they say "maybe", is because they do the Recce the day before they rally, so if there was snow on one area of a stage, it might have melted. They throw "maybe"s in whenever there's a chance that something might be significantly different than what it was the day before.
 
Another reason for saying "maybe" is that it is sometimes difficult to judge what a corner will be like at rally speed.

When you're doing recce you are generally limited to a maximum of 100 km/h (in Australia it's 60 km/h!)

So you're driving along at 60 trying to work out what the road will be like at 180. So you might have a "tightens maybe" on the end of a corner when you are not sure whether it's going to be an issue at speed.

But yes a Canadiandrifter said, the major use would be like "5 right slippy maybe" so the driver is aware there may be a surface change in the corner.
 
you have something for everything, imo co-drivers are probably more skilled than the driver and most certainly are the most important aspect of winning.
The speed the drivers go they are absolutely 100% relying on their co-driver, one missed note, one wrong note anything could end a rally for them.

Take today for example, there was a jump on a stage and 4-5 of the drivers who jumped fully on it, winded their co-driver and marcus gronholm in particular panicked as his co-driver couldnt get his notes out. Hirvonen, dunno if it was a wrong note or a isheard note but he sped down the wrong road and had to go back.
 

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