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Observations from a first time drive on stage notes

17K views 30 replies 16 participants last post by  John Cassidy 
#1 ·
After running STPR many times on routebooks, I tried my first go driving on stage notes. The experience was not totally new, as I had the chance to co-drive on them several times last year, so I do not think my experience had any 'transition' problems, in regards to what to expect.

The positives:
1) Many more instructions, more often, so one had a better picture of the road immediately ahead. (This could have really made a difference on the fastest, flowing stage, if the car was not running at 60% power!) This allowed a bit more attack on some turns, but I am sure I did not take full advanatage of this.
2) Possibly more comfort and less sweat

The negative:
3) I found in the mid-portion of the rally that I was "imagining" the corner more ahead of time, and slipping in use of my visual read of the characteristics of the corner. I did this on one R3 corner and suddenly 'snapped' myself out of it, realizing that I was slipping into to something between a red-mist situation and thinking I was sitting in front of a video game. BAAAAAAD! I forced myself back into full road-reading mode.

I think I need to run some satges that I have never run before, with notes, to get a full assessment of their value. I have always thought that the real benefit was to let new competitors hired for the big teams to be on more fo an equal footing when coming over here to compete with the US 'locals' who have been over the present ProRally stage roads many times. (This is not to say it is a bad thing.)

My feelings against stage notes for ClubRallies remain the same:
a) They can be more dangerous if not used properly and are not a good substitute for learning to read the roads. The makers of the notes are explicit in saying that they do not include information on the exact nature of each turn, only the radius. They do not note the camber, gravel content, road base materials, and degree of crown on turns; this is left as 'an exercise for the reader'. This is the value of learning to read the roads. For this reason, I'll continue to oppose their introduction in Club events.
b) The expense cannot be justified for younger competitors, trying to start out on their own finances. With the difficulty of moving up in seed to qualify for a Pro event, the introduction of notes in Club events will make the gap between the 'have's' and the 'have-nots' even greater. Since this is a club, I do not want anymore financial burden to be added onto the expenses that have to be borne, in perticular for those just starting out.

Regards,
Mark B.
 
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#2 ·
hi there

interested in your thoughts on stage notes...

re your learning to read the road..

how do you read a blind jump in a club rally...

is it more dangerous to know what happens over the crest or more safe if you know that the road goes left or right after the crest..

i cannot agree with your decision to oppose stage notes for club rallies....based on your argument..
the problem is that not everyone is going to slow down just because they cant be sure whats over the hill...because the competition is so intense at the front this is the difference of winning or losing..

how about if some particular group was willing to absorb the extra cost of notes..

would you be in favour or not..

learning to read the road is great for left and right etc..but it does not work for blind jumps..

any thoughts

regards
niall d
 
#3 ·
>the problem is that not everyone is going to slow down just
>because they cant be sure whats over the hill...because the
>competition is so intense at the front this is the
>difference of winning or losing..<

Niall,

Stage Notes will not solve the problem of overly-gonzo amature Drivers and/or Codrivers that take excessive risk. A Driver's level head and the ability to "read the road" are the most effective Safety Tools.

A driver can be cautioned about a jump equally as well with a Tulip Comment in a Route Book as with Stage Notes. But, this caution must still be properly conveyed to the Driver, on time, by the Codriver. My personal opinion is that a frazeled or inexperienced Codriver is less likely to get lost in a Route Book than Stage Notes. Numbered on-stage "Course Marker Flags" noted in the Route Book can help Codrivers keep their place. But considering the range of possible Codriver errors, the necessity for Drivers being able to "read the road" becomes even more important.

I agree with Mark's first impression here. In addition, I have always been opposed to increased ClubRally cost. ClubRally should be the place where the rudiments and techniques of performance rallying can be learned by amatures and practiced for a lifetime.

Rich Smith

Vive le "Pro-le-Ralliat"
 
#4 ·
hi there

I dont disagree with the need to learn to read the road...however
the problem i see that has developed in Club rallies is:

the route books for the most part are re used from year to year and date back in some cases quite far to a time when the cars were lower hp and maybe not going as fast as now..
so that a crest with single caution is now 5 feet of air and 30 foot jump..

we need a standardized system, call it anything you like but if something is not done to either check all route books keeping in mind the speed of the front cars and how a road is going to look at that speed, then be sure more accidents are on the way..

how would you feel about a detailed route book and course arrowing,
if some particular group took on the extra financial burden of making the arrows and placing on the route?

a little bit of topic....but
restiction needed on type of car that a beginner can use...
this should be the first issue dealt with..

regards
niall d
 
#5 ·
But...

Even the stage notes don't tell you all you need to know about blind crests.

Just because the road is straight after the jump does not mean you do not need to slow down.

I have experienced this on Mandam at LSPR when the jump was double or triple cautioned but our odo was out and all I saw was the finish flag. The landing was very heavy the struts went thru the towers and we were lucky to not exit the road. (route book)

Also on Brockway there is a big yump before the big yump. I hit that this year with more speed than I would have liked. All was fine, but at the clubrally level in PGT I do not need or want to fly as far as I can, I need to conserve the equipment a bit. (Notes)

More examples were at Ojibwe last year when Ryhs broke the car over a series of yumps. (Notes)

So the point is YES we need better INFORMATION, YES we need to update our route books. But Notes do not solve the problem of a blind crest.

I am in agreement with:
1) Old Route Books are inadequate
2) Notes are not appropriate at our curent club level.

For those running at the front, it is a pretty equal playing feild and if the route book is not adequate tell the clerk of the course if they will not update the book, get your fellow competitors to skip that rally. Those who run at the front have a big voice if they work together to solve problems.

Regards,
Mike
 
#6 ·
Hi Niall,

Thanks for the thoughtful post; your points are very germane to this discussion, and are good points to consider.

>is it more dangerous to know what happens over the crest or
>more safe if you know that the road goes left or right after
>the crest..

My replies to this:
a) The same information can be included in a route book as to what is over a crest as in stage notes.
b) The danger level of going over a blind crest has nothing to do with the information about the road after crest if the information is CORRECTLY presented in a route book or on stage notes. If you have good knowledge of the road past the crest, the danger level is then set 100% by the driver (assuming the co-driver calls it out!).


>
>i cannot agree with your decision to oppose stage notes for
>club rallies....based on your argument..
>the problem is that not everyone is going to slow down just
>because they cant be sure whats over the hill...because the
>competition is so intense at the front this is the
>difference of winning or losing..

Yes you are right. The level of agressiveness is a LARGE factor nowadays in final placing in rallies. This HAS changed A LOT over the last 5 years or so. But a good routebook or stage notes will not change the level of danger. It can only be based on the level of driver aggressiveness. Let me illustarte:
I had the priviledge of riding with a very taleneted young driver a while back. His skills in car handling were well above mine. I was a bit scared at first but after a while I could see he could handle the car superbly (although I observed to him that only his fast, young reflexes were saving him in some cases!) . BUT, the one excpetion was on blind crests. He would hit these with no lifting at all. We were on ice, on a 1-1/2 lane wide road lined by dense trees. Any small perturbation in entering one crest would have landed us a bit sideways, and the outcome of a slightly sideways hit on ice at 80 mph on a narrow road is usually bad. I pleaded for him to slow down on the crests: he absolutely ignored me. He only slowed down after a landing that was so hard that my chest was hurt from hitting the belts, and the rear suspension was bent. I think even he was a bit overcome.

This had nothing to do with use routebooks or stage notes. The crests were well marked in the routebook, with cautions; the treeline was easy to read. It all had to do with driver aggressiveness, AND use of good judgement.

In reviewing my 2 paragraphs above, I see one more factor entering into this that I did not mention in the orignal post: judgement. This is another factor, along with driver aggressiveness, that is everything in using stage note or routebook info well. Again, I will reiterate my point that stage notes have limited info in them, a fact that is explicitly pointed out by the folks who make them, and this has nothing to safe use of the info. Any overly aggressive driving or just plain lack of judgement will have a bad end.

I truly believe that the level of info in a routebook, if done right, works fine and is a good training tool IN THE FACT THAT IS DOES LEAVE MUCH INFO OUT FOR THE DRIVER TO FIGURE OUT. A driver DOES have to develop a sense of caution in approaching blind action points when running from aroutebook. If he or she does not, the end will be bad. But, stage notes do nothing to help this for learners.

I'll reiterate: stage notes serve the function of equalizing the knowledge of the road, but do NOT intrinsicily make a stage safer versus a good routebook. The consistency of the stage notes generated for ProRally that we have at a significant cost versus the variabiliy in the routebook info is the key factor that I think you are trying to fix. I have seen pelenty of good routebooks to know that they can be done well.

>
>how about if some particular group was willing to absorb the
>extra cost of notes..
>
>would you be in favour or not..

I am willing to listen. I think a large part of this argument is whether folks want a stage note format or tulip routebooks. If the cost were the same, I would go with the majority; this is a club situation. If the majority wants stage notes, and they REALLY are free, then I am in.

However, you have to show me concrete proof that stage notes would cost $0 now and forever. Form my standpoint, this would have to come in the form of long term contract with someone to do the notes, at no charge, with their financing for this coming from somewhere that is clearly identified. I hate to be such a prick on this point, but I am the sales business, and I know all too well how easy it is to say that something will be done to convince somebody to buy off, but with no real commitment behind it. (PS: I am not at all saying you would do this Niall; I just know this HAS to be paid for, and it has to be set up right to work. I would have NO CONDFIDENCE if the SCCA Performance rally dept said this would happen with no cost to the club rallyists.)

One other factor to discuss: Are the fellows from Europe used the having stage notes or pace notes at EVERY event? You can probably answer this for us. If so, is part of this division of opinion just a simple level of discomfort with routbooks for some of the rally community who are very familiar and comfortable with a different system??
>
>learning to read the road is great for left and right
>etc..but it does not work for blind jumps..
I can't totally agree, but that's a minor point.

Thanks for reading my post carefully and your thoughtful comments. I always like your well done inputs in these discussions.

Regards,
Mark B.
 
#7 ·
>
>the route books for the most part are re used from year to
>year and date back in some cases quite far to a time when
>the cars were lower hp and maybe not going as fast as now..
>so that a crest with single caution is now 5 feet of air and
>30 foot jump..

You make a very good point, Niall; the cars have changed a LOT (and, I would claim, so have the perceptions on what is safe driving, that are carried into the sport by many of the newer folks).
>
>we need a standardized system, call it anything you like but
>if something is not done to either check all route books
>keeping in mind the speed of the front cars and how a road
>is going to look at that speed, then be sure more accidents
>are on the way..

I am 100% in favor of routebook reivews and some better degree of stanadardization.

>
>how would you feel about a detailed route book and course
>arrowing,
>if some particular group took on the extra financial burden
>of making the arrows and placing on the route?

Good things; now prove to me the source of the long term finanacial backing and I will be on-board with you. (See my prior post for detials of why I ask this.)
>
>a little bit of topic....but
>restiction needed on type of car that a beginner can use...
>this should be the first issue dealt with..

I was about to comment here, but yes, this is another topic! One that has had lost of air-time on the forum already!

Regards,
Mark B.
 
#8 ·
Mark,

Overall I agree with your original comments.

Stage notes really only make much sense competitively if you are willing, as a driver, to drive by your codriver's calls rather than strictly by your eyes. Once we got the rhythm of this we found it to cut our stage times pretty well. This is their advantage, but based on recent experience, I don't buy the "added safety" argument that has been put forward (an argument I found tenuous at best even before our experience at STPR this year).

Unfortunately if stage notes are used as intended, a missed call or a mis-perception of a call is going to have much worse consequences . . . a hairpin with a tree that in previous years I would have relatively crept up to on route book came up way to damn fast on stage notes because Driver found himself unable to process a lot of stuff happening over the intercom all at once. In this particular case, there was no room for error and the tree won. An inexperienced team? - not hardly, this was our fifth STPR, fourth rally on stage notes, so I don't think so - we both knew the nature of the roads at STPR. The fault of the stage notes? No, they seemed to be well-constructed. The problem was the fault of an experienced Team learning a new tool and having a failure in that system. If it wasn't us, it could have easily been any one of a whole bunch of other teams. It's a risk one takes as one tries to get to the next level.

Regarding beginners, I have to think that adding stage notes right out of the box has the potential to do more harm than good. Subverting learning basic technique in both seats in order to also learn stage notes seems like a prescription for worse crashes and more disasters during the early (and steep) part of the learning curve, especially in these times of relatively easily accessible very powerful and fast rally cars. I think where the line is drawn (ClubRally? Lower seeds? X number of rallies? Attendance at rally schools?) is the discussion that needs to be had.
 
#9 ·
>we need a standardized system, call it anything you like but
>if something is not done to either check all route books
>keeping in mind the speed of the front cars and how a road
>is going to look at that speed, then be sure more accidents
>are on the way..

>how would you feel about a detailed route book and course
>arrowing, if some particular group took on the extra financial burden
>of making the arrows and placing on the route?

Niall,

Organizers here in the Northwest already write detailed books and have used numbered course marker flags for as long as I can remember. So, I don't think we have quite the same problem.

I'm not an organizer and do not presume to speak for them. But, my observation is that Northwest Organizers already regard preparation of "detailed" Route Books and Course Markers Flags as part of their minimum prepartation standard. I don't think an "extra financial burden" is at issue here. It's already factored-in.

Rich Smith

Vive le "Pro-le-Ralliat"
 
#10 ·
This doesn't seem overly complex to me:

You have three tools:

1. Car control
2. Judgement (including about the road, the fineness of car controllability, and the quality of the notes, and also the amount held in "reserve" for error in all three factors)
3. Information about the road (be it route, course, or pace notes)

The key is that you inflect the information with the judgement. All that the critics of notes for beginners are saying is that they don't yet have the judgement to interpret and rely on the enhanced information provided by course notes. But then do you think that they have the judgement to rely on a route book that is much more subjectively-drawn? To drive entirely blind? To even control the car in the first place?

As someone with reasonable car control and passable judgement (although on both you can and some may argue otherwise!), I always want as much accurate information as possible about the roads. I only feel fully secure using pace notes that I have written. Short of that you have to put yourself in the head of whoever wrote the notes in order to judge how good they are and determine the degree on which you will rely on them.

The advantage of course notes is that they are pretty reliable and consistent. The consistency of route books? Don't even get me started. Unless I know who made them and can rely on that person's judgement, forget it. At best they're just someone's amateur guess as to how it's going to be when driven in anger (especially given the small population of people who really have been flat out in an open-class AWD turbo). I broke a rear link (and five other teams damaged their cars or themselves) on a rally where a crest marked as a no-caution "bump" had a huge drop on the other side that was probably not such a big deal at 30km/h but what was a major incident at 120km/h.

So would you rather have beginners relying on that level of subjectivity (that caught all of us out even at the front of the pack on a national-level rally) or on something that is very consistent (course notes)?

I say this: allow course notes everywhere for their consistency, and allow beginners to focus their judgement on how much to rely on those high-quality notes, rather than how much to rely on a subjective route book.

Cost is certainly an issue. I don't pretend to know what to do. I suspect what Niall is suggesting is to have the leading cars bear the brunt of the cost, but he may have something else in mind. Maybe a sponsor?

But no notes for Club rallies? Frankly, I think the top 5 competitors in any NE Club event are only a shade slower (and no less agressive) than perhaps the second 5 on any Pro event in the country. We all know that "Club" has become an artificial distinction. It's just "Regional" and allows the raw beginners too.

You wanna have some way to vet beginners' judgement? Do what all other forms of motorsport do to vet their judgement - make them go to a school - and not just about the proper placement of triangles, but on how fast they can go, how much to rely on notes, and how much margin to keep in hand. And if they go off road in two of their first three events, make them go back to the school. Observe them. Probation them.

Then let them go out and be idiots like the rest of us.

ACP
www.musketeerracing.com
Flirting with the laws of physics.
 
#11 ·
>>we need a standardized system, call it anything you like but
>>if something is not done to either check all route books
>>keeping in mind the speed of the front cars and how a road
>>is going to look at that speed, then be sure more accidents
>>are on the way..
>
>>how would you feel about a detailed route book and course
>>arrowing, if some particular group took on the extra financial burden
>>of making the arrows and placing on the route?
>
>Niall,
>
>Organizers here in the Northwest already write detailed
>books and have used numbered course marker flags for as long
>as I can remember. So, I don't think we have quite the same
>problem.
>
>I'm not an organizer and do not presume to speak for them.
>But, my observation is that Northwest Organizers already
>regard preparation of "detailed" Route Books and Course
>Markers Flags as part of their minimum prepartation
>standard. I don't think an "extra financial burden" is at
>issue here. It's already factored-in.
>
>Rich Smith

This is all true about the NW. But I've not seen a single marker at LSPR. Route book was fine, but no arrows.
 
#12 ·
hi rich

that is great for you guys but what about the north east

i have not looked at the type of cars you get in club rallies in the northwest..

but would you say you have 15-20 evos and a few wrx.. sti.. etc at every club rally in the northwest.

i dont think so...and i am by no way taking away from your very healthy series in the nortwest..i done Oregon and it was one of the best rallies to compete in..

and the route book was fantastic..

the problem is more East and North East specific....where there is a high population of very fast open class cars running on route books
prepared for much slower average speeds..

regards
niall d
 
#13 ·
I can agree with the large # of fast cars here in the NE. Hell, Ski Sawmill (~30 stage miles or so) had 11 Evo's & 7 WRX's entered.

>how do you read a blind jump in a club rally...
>
>is it more dangerous to know what happens over the crest or more >safe if you know that the road goes left or right after the crest..

And I know what you're getting at with this question. The cars are faster, the notes/tulips from even 3-4 yrs ago should be redone. If there is any spot where you can remotely have a chance of getting air on stage, the notes right around that area should be VERY detailed. You can't steer with no wheels on the ground.

Pete
 
#14 ·
hi all

i understand how complex this issue is.. however let me address a few issues first...

I have not done a survey amongst the Irish here yet ..but the very large majority of the irish guys rallying started thier rallying here.

they for the most part have only had expierience with notes in this country. some people think that they want notes to have an advantage..
not the case...

the financial side of this great plan....sketchy to say the least
however our draw started out as sketchy and is moving toward a very favourable position.

if the majority wants to keep route books, fine.. however not without something done to make the details within consistent and relative to the speeds.

more on the financing of the notes later...no need to find a group to pay if no organiser wants to offer them... and we just might have a group to pay...not a sponsor as such ..
more like a group of people that feel the route books in thier current state at some club rallies make it very difficult to compete at the front safely..

the basic problem for some guys is that they come from a Pro rally,driving with much more info ..be it route book or notes...to a club rally and forget for a few seconds that it is blind...

there has to be some uniformity...if not the new guys come into club rally learn to read the roads...get faster etc..the next natural progression is to a PRO rally...now what do they do...start all over again big book full of numbers and letters..

why not have both if someone can find the money to do it???

reagrds
niall d
 
#15 ·
hi pete

i am not making any reference to any particular rally or corner..even if it reads that way...this applies to alot of the rallies.

i think the speeds have increased with such a leap that everyone is going to get caught out...

there is always going to be accidents in this sport but lets try to do all we can to improve the safety for all concerned

regards
niall d
 
#16 ·
>hi rich
>
>that is great for you guys but what about the north east
>
>i have not looked at the type of cars you get in club
>rallies in the northwest..
>
>but would you say you have 15-20 evos and a few wrx.. sti..
>etc at every club rally in the northwest.
>
>i dont think so...and i am by no way taking away from your
>very healthy series in the nortwest..i done Oregon and it
>was one of the best rallies to compete in..
>
>and the route book was fantastic..
>
>the problem is more East and North East specific....where
>there is a high population of very fast open class cars
>running on route books
>prepared for much slower average speeds..
>
>regards
>niall d
>
>
Definately more fast cars in the NE right now. NW is kind of in one of those lulls you get evert once in a while when everyone runs out of money before the new project gets purchased.
 
#17 ·
>the basic problem for some guys is that they come from a Pro
>rally,driving with much more info ..be it route book or
>notes...to a club rally and forget for a few seconds that it
>is blind...
>
>there has to be some uniformity...if not the new guys come
>into club rally learn to read the roads...get faster
>etc..the next natural progression is to a PRO rally...now
>what do they do...start all over again big book full of
>numbers and letters..


Agreed. Also, from a co-driver's point of view, the transition from route books to stage notes is even worse IMO. The previously good co-drivers on route books may not be so great with stage notes. They may go through tons of Club events and then buy that expensive Pro license just to realize that they can't do it. It might be tougher for new co-drivers, but it's not like you can just pick co-drivers off the street like in old days and have them buy their $20 rally license and help split the $100 entry. If you're going to get into the sport now you have to be serious about it, or have a lot of money. I couldn't get a friend to just co-drive for me at an event as he'd have to pay $70 for an SCCA membership, $75 for a ClubRally license, and then split the $400 entry fee with me, while waiting a month for all of this to get done. If a Club team can do well at the Club level, they should be able to fit right into Pro. I agree with introducing them into ProRally first as a test, but it's time for it to trickle down to ClubRallies. I mean, you can use stage ntoes at ClubRally events supporting Pro ones, so why not stand-alone Club events?

Personally, the only reason why I would want a Pro license is to run stage notes. If I could use them at ClubRallies, I'd be content paying the smaller fees for Club events and film the Pros doing their thing at long, expensive national events, until I'm older at least.

And as for the cost, who says stage notes have to be created by an expensive computer system from P-Sport? Couldn't an experienced pace note maker or co-driver do them? It's still a little subjective, but you could barely tell the difference. Plus, ClubRallies generally have about half the stage miles of ProRallies here on the east coast, so I'm sure that could cut the costs too. I think $50-$75 is a realistic amount to pay for human-developed stage notes on a short event. If you split that with your driver, you only pay $25-$40. Not bad at all...

Thanks,
Alex
 
#18 ·
>And as for the cost, who says stage notes have to be created
>by an expensive computer system from P-Sport? Couldn't an
>experienced pace note maker or co-driver do them?

In Sweden, notes are generally made by Gunnar Barth, Bruno Berglund, or the Jemba system that P-Sport uses. Prices are similar across the board -- because the cost of the notemaking is basically the cost of travel and time for the 2-3 folks involved.
Now I ask this -- how many note makers of Gunnar and Bruno's caliber do we have in this country?

>It's still
>a little subjective, but you could barely tell the
>difference.

All it takes is one "!R4<>3- o.c. exit" that's marked wrong...

>Plus, ClubRallies generally have about half the
>stage miles of ProRallies here on the east coast, so I'm
>sure that could cut the costs too.

Maybe a little, but again, the bulk of the cost is travel. And before you suggest that organizers can prepare notes, I'd suggest that
a) that's additional work for already-burdened organizers and b) again, there is a severe risk of lack of consistency.

Ever seen how much route books vary by region? If we had regionally-created organizer notes, I'd be very very concerned. Having stage notes we can count on to be consistent and high quality is worth a substantial investment.

>Alex

- Christian

Bjorn Christian Edstrom
Co-Driver
 
#19 ·
stage notes

I just came back from Black Bear in Canada where Keith Townsend made the notes. This is a one-road event run 4x and he said the notes were the same as last year with a couple additions for new conditions.
I think 3's in the rocky section at the end were 2's for me and 3's at the start were 3+ for me, but that's OK, nothing was super wrong, just shaded a bit and it could have been grip level too, which Jamba doesn't take into consideration either.
If you know the notes are human made, you have to run a little suspiciously just in case, but I don't trust the Jamba ones completely either, just in case.
I drive as if I couldn't afford to replace the car because I can't afford to replace the car. I wail on 1's and 2's and then hang back a little on the faster stuff unless I can see it. Apparently, most of us non-pros are similarly scared because the times seem similar thru most events. I think the new guys may think they have to push real hard and crash and roll because they think the competition isn't as scared as they are, so they suck up and try too hard, or maybe they just make mistakes, or the cars aren't set up well, I don't know.
Sounds like left coasters make detailed tulips and easterners are still trying to force the "way things were" on everyone with, "Start, Right Turn at 3.4, Finish" tulips. That may have worked when roads weren't closed, at night, with 1300cc cars on crappy tires with lever shocks. When finishing was a matter of car survival. My car will take tremendous hits, fly straight and land soft, the tires stick and won't blow (easily) and it doesn't overheat. There's no reason to lift for almost anything so a detailed description of the road is a pretty important thing to have.
Notes or detailed tulips are pretty good things to have and should be supplied if the rally is an annual affair.
rz
 
#20 ·
I'm going to comment on just one thing here.

Starting with the assumption that the follow statement is in substance true in the case of at least one Club Rally.

>
>the route books for the most part are re used from year to
>year and date back in some cases quite far to a time when

Now... If that is true, that the route books or at least stages from the route books are being reused without being reevaluated first hand each year, then SHAME ON THE RALLYMASTER!

Not only do the cars that make up the fields change, but the roads themselves change, sometimes significantly. At times they change for meteorological reasons, sometimes they change because the authorities maintaining the roads change them (roads wash away and are replaced, wear away, straighten out, or even get curvier)

Sometimes you, as the rallymaster, can get to know the roads too well. Fresh eyes and new experiences, can make the route features safer.

Regardless of how the route is documented for the competitors (notes or tulips) good sense must be exercised in choosing the routes you are using.

respectfully,
JBLewis
 
#21 ·
RE: stage notes

Anybody run Sno*Drift this year with the route book?

I ask because we had a few "new" stages written -- and because we have learned from Stage Notes those stages look a lot different from a tulip standpoint.

Hopefully this year all the stages will include the additional tulips to add consistency and more information to the book. Important note: I heard no comments about the route book this year, that does not mean people did not have opinions it means they did not care enough to addresses any issues.
FYI -- we had the course checked by several people with the mix of new stages and old stages, I was concerned about the inconsistency of adding the new "more tulips" stages, it was judged not to be a problem, but I still plan to re-write the old stages to be consistent. My goal is to provide the club guy with a book just as good as the notes.

Here is what I, subjectively, think can and cannot been done with tulips.

You can easily distinguish between 1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s; it is very difficult to distinguish between a 3 and a 3+ or 3- accurately in the drawing (same for all pluses and minuses). 5 and some 6s end up in the book, but seem to be too hard to draw differently.

So I believe a route book can be drawn with many of the same designations as notes. Importantly I do not believe a subjective route book or subjective notes will be as consistent as the Jemba system. (Jemba is not perfect but definitely likely to be more consistent and accurate.)

The route book also has the ability to clearly mark roadside hazards, add comments, and cautions.

Route books with a new philosophy of what they should include can be very detailed. They can give you notes for almost every corner and crest that the notes can. They cannot be as consistent, which means the driver has to do more interpretation of the road than he might with Jemba notes.

Either with notes or with tulips the idea is to add a level of safety. Neither is really intended to allow you to drive faster -- more information and more accurate information is what allows you to drive faster.

Initially tulips were intended to only identify the tricky or deceiving corners. They were designed to allow a safe following of the route at speed. I still believe that that type of tulip rally is fun and very competitive, it does give an advantage to those who know the character of the road better than those who do not. I am not advocating a series go back to this type of route, but I know a few rallyists who would love this type of rally (who are skilled road readers)...

In any case I believe organizers have a duty to rewrite their route books in the new era of course notes. If the organizer does not have course notes experience he/she should get assistance from those that do. I advocate for continued use of route books because they NEED interpretation by the driver and co-driver, and everyone knows they need to be interpreted. The level of safety should not be compromised compared to subjective notes, and tulips by design paint a picture. In notes a two, is a two, is a two, a drawing of a two can be a two minus or a two plus...

It used to be you drove only what you saw with a few course change notes. Now you drive what you cannot see. Without the consistency of Jemba (and we have all arrived at a Jemba corner and said that wasn't a 3 #$&$*!) I don't see a value in notes over tulips at the club level. Let me clarify -- I don't see a need for the cost of the Jemba system and people needed to run it at the club level. We all know the route books can be improved.

Should club rallies be allowed to use notes?
If that is what the people want and will pay for, but at the club rally level I think the notes would then have to be available to all competitors, so the cost would have to be baked in to the entry fee.

Should newbie's be allowed to use them (seed 7 and 8)? I really don't see a need at that level, if you are new and good at the basics like reading the road, you'll soon be a seed 6 and you can make your own decision.

No good solutions here, but a worth while discussion.

Mike
 
#22 ·
RE: stage notes

>Important note: I heard no comments about the
>route book this year, that does not mean people did not have
>opinions it means they did not care enough to addresses any
>issues.

I don't agree with you here, Mike. I have run across problems in route books, but in order to relay that back to the organizer, I have to A)let my codriver know the book is wrong/in question, and B) The codriver must then make a note of the mileage in the book and what the problem was. We just don't have enough time on stage for these conversations. If I tell you "Stage 3 was all messed up," will that help you? That is about all the detail on the situation that I can remember by the time I get back to service...and I usually have other things on my mind by then. In talking to other teams (back when we used route books) they said the same thing. "That stage was messed up, but I don't know exactly where it was. We didn't have time to have a conference about it."

>You can easily distinguish between 1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s; it is
>very difficult to distinguish between a 3 and a 3+ or 3-
>accurately in the drawing (same for all pluses and minuses).
> 5 and some 6s end up in the book, but seem to be too hard
>to draw differently.

I disagree with this as well. The numbers relate to the severity of the turn, not the number of degrees from start to finish. Since there is no sense of scale in a tulip drawing (drawn from 100ft above the road? 200?), there is really no way of knowing if I am looking at a R3 short or a R5 in many instances.

>
>So I believe a route book can be drawn with many of the same
>designations as notes. Importantly I do not believe a
>subjective route book or subjective notes will be as
>consistent as the Jemba system. (Jemba is not perfect but
>definitely likely to be more consistent and accurate.)

Agreed. I am pretty impressed with the Jemba. It creates notes I would trust much more than my own, with my limited note making ability.

>
>The route book also has the ability to clearly mark roadside
>hazards, add comments, and cautions.

Anything that is important is in the notes, too. I, personally, like the n.c. designation. I don't care if it is a rock, a stump, or a '49 Ford in the ditch. If it says don't cut, you'd better not cut! Anything else is wasted words.

>The level of safety
>should not be compromised compared to subjective notes, and
>tulips by design paint a picture. In notes a two, is a two,
>is a two, a drawing of a two can be a two minus or a two
>plus...

But the driver never sees the drawing. It needs to be translated to words. I would rather have confidence in those words than guess as to what my codriver THOUGHT that the rallymaster THOUGHT while he drove down the stage at transit speed.
>
>It used to be you drove only what you saw with a few course
>change notes. Now you drive what you cannot see. Without
>the consistency of Jemba (and we have all arrived at a Jemba
>corner and said that wasn't a 3 #$&$*!) I don't see a value
>in notes over tulips at the club level. Let me clarify -- I
>don't see a need for the cost of the Jemba system and people
>needed to run it at the club level. We all know the route
>books can be improved.

I think some people have been driving what they cannot see for a while...since before we got notes. How bad do you want to win?
>
>Should club rallies be allowed to use notes?
>If that is what the people want and will pay for, but at the
>club rally level I think the notes would then have to be
>available to all competitors, so the cost would have to be
>baked in to the entry fee.
>
>Should newbie's be allowed to use them (seed 7 and 8)? I
>really don't see a need at that level, if you are new and
>good at the basics like reading the road, you'll soon be a
>seed 6 and you can make your own decision.
>
I like what Black Bear does. It gave my dad a chance to run with notes last year and he saw the value immediately.

Now, when we get lost in the notes (it happens), what do I do? Hit the brakes! I know I am going faster with them and when I don't understand what is streaming into my ears or it doesn't seem to match up with the road, I slow down...slower than I ran with tulips.

I notice everyone commenting has quite a bit of experience. They all learned with tulips. I, for one, will say that I wish notes were available when I got started. As Alex said, it is a different task...not just for the co-driver, but for the driver as well. I believe it was harder to uproot from tulips and go to notes than it would have been to start on them. Yes, I would have gotten lost in the notes alot. Experience tells me that I would slow down slower than necessary when that happened. I think it would have saved me way more money in time, parts and bondo, if I would have learned that skill along with the rest of the skills involved in driving (including reading the road) the first time around.
 
#23 ·
RE: stage notes

Good additional comments. Note this too though: a really detailed route book will still have a fundamental problem: no continuity.

As long as there's one corner or relief unmarked in a route book, you can get easily caught out. If the codriver has to keep referring to the odo, the instructions are not continuous. If he can link all the instructions together, it's continuous.

High detail without actual continuity gives a false sense of security and is a real challenge. So organizers - as you make your route book more and more sophisticated understand that you're pushing up an exponential curve of difficulty for the teams, until it becomes truly continuous and you're over that crest at which point it is a whole different thing-y.

That's the technical word.

ACP
Flirting with the laws of physics.
 
#24 ·
RE: stage notes

>Note this too though: a really detailed route book will still have a fundamental problem: no continuity.<

>As long as there's one corner or relief unmarked in a route
>book, you can get easily caught out. If the codriver has to
>keep referring to the odo, the instructions are not
>continuous. If he can link all the instructions together,
>it's continuous.<

Andrew,

I don't see a continuity problem with "detailed" Route Books. They will tulip all intersections, corners, jumps, exposures, hazards, etc. They will provide stage mileage(s) for each tulip location, and comments when appropriate. They are not intended to generate a running Codriver commentary, thank goodness. Continuity is achieved by passing tulip locations, course flags, and noticing the progress of stage mileage.

I would worry about a Codriver that didn't check-in with his odo from time to time. This is where continuity is affirmed. Also, an even higher degree of continuity is achieved when "course marker flags" are used ahead of major hazards, and in the long quiet sections where there's time to doubt your location. An added bonus with flags is the Driver can call them out by number without the CoDriver ever looking up. (Yeah, I'm a big fan of course flags.)

Rich Smith

Vive le "Pro-le-Ralliat"
 
#25 ·
RE: stage notes

I'll just have to differ with you here. The Pacific Forest Rally quite correctly praises itself for the detail of its route book - they say they have an average of one instruction evey 150meters or something. And the instructions are quite accurate.

But that means that for a while the routebook will describe everything in front of you, and you get lulled into a pacenote/coursenote rhythm (you begin to drive to what you're hearing). But then there can suddenly be a corner or relief not in the route book at all! Whoa! Where did that come from?!

Of course it came from the fact that its still a route book. Based on distances, not on continuity. Even if your co-driver is working heroically there is no reason that you can rely on him to warn you of every corner, because the organizers haven't put (quite) every corner in there. If they did, that would be course notes.

So this begs the question: how detailed can a route book be before it becomes safer to just make it into a continuous system of course notes?

ACP
www.musketeerracing.com
Flirting with the laws of physics.

PS Here we are on a "hard right tightens exposure left" from the PFR route book. As you can see, you wouldn't want to miss an instruction (or a corner). And as a footnote, could route-book makers (and Jemba guys) please stop writing "exposure left/right"? It should be "exposure outside/inside." If you get a partial instruction you might think you're meant to turn into the exposure...

http://www.musketeerracing.com/photos/2003/pacific/pacific1.jpg
 
#26 ·
RE: stage notes

>>Note this too though: a really detailed route book will still have a fundamental problem: no continuity.<
>
>>As long as there's one corner or relief unmarked in a route
>>book, you can get easily caught out. If the codriver has to
>>keep referring to the odo, the instructions are not
>>continuous. If he can link all the instructions together,
>>it's continuous.<
>
>Andrew,
>
>I don't see a continuity problem with "detailed" Route
>Books. They will tulip all intersections, corners, jumps,
>exposures, hazards, etc. They will provide stage mileage(s)
>for each tulip location, and comments when appropriate. They
>are not intended to generate a running Codriver commentary,
>thank goodness. Continuity is achieved by passing tulip
>locations, course flags, and noticing the progress of stage
>mileage.

Regarding continuity, you cannot put ALL corners in a route book (what constitutes a corner, anyway?) on all types of stage. The moment you leave one out, you might as well leave out others (hopefully only the ones where it is obvious what the road does) and make the routebook more manageable (both for the routemaster and the codriver). You also have to work hard to get anything like the consistency of information that the notes have. As was mentioned before, there is no scale asociated with a tulip so it is difficult to interpret correctly (especially when the tulip is different for multiple passes of the same stagex(). Note: I know from experience how difficult it is to draw tulips consistently. Putting descriptive text beside a tulip ('hard left' etc.) is not a solution, because now the routemaster is adding an interpretation that may not be how a team would interpret the corner.

If you have too many instructions in a distance-referenced route book, you make the chance of error much higher (higher than the chance of error on notes). This is because the codriver workload exceeds that of notes because they are now referencing three things (book, odo, outside) rather than the two (notes, outside) on notes. You also will not be able to put everything in a routebook that is in the notes, although sometimes you can put info in a route book that wouldn't make it in the notes (like the rock in the bottom of a dip on Benton Mountain, CT 2001 :().

>I would worry about a Codriver that didn't check-in with his
>odo from time to time. This is where continuity is affirmed.
>Also, an even higher degree of continuity is achieved when
>"course marker flags" are used ahead of major hazards, and
>in the long quiet sections where there's time to doubt your
>location. An added bonus with flags is the Driver can call
>them out by number without the CoDriver ever looking up.
>(Yeah, I'm a big fan of course flags.)

On notes I never look at the odo on stage. On a 'blind' rally I use it constantly, but I can (have) run rallies without it. On a route book rally, proper arrowing (with a warning arrow) is the best way I've seen of keeping on track and increasing safety when the codriver is lost or the odo has decided to take a vacation. I haven't run any of the western events to see the course marker flags, but I assume that they have a similar effect in providing a warning of the next intruction BEFORE you get to it.

One thing that should never be done is to put up arrows/markers where there is no instruction in the route book. I've seen this done and all it does is introduce doubt and confusion to the crew.

I (mostly) like the idea of notes for ClubRallies, as long as it doesn't make the cost of running increase significantly, but I am concerned that it will adversely affect the ability of new drivers to learn how to read roads.

Adrian
 
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