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TSD Style Recce' - an idea to grow and share!

3K views 11 replies 5 participants last post by  rightseat 
#1 ·
The goal of a good recce' is to get all the competitors down every stage they will need to 'pace note' in a reasonable time. You want them to get down the stage without speeding. You want to account for all the cars that went down the stage. You want the recce' to be smooth and controlled. You want to use a minimal amount of volunteer manpower with maximum gains. You'll need 4-5 volunteer cars to run this depending on distance and routes.

TSD Style Recce'

20 cars line up in the morning for recce'.
You hand out 20 cards numbered 1 - 20 to stick on the pass side window.
You hand out 20 instruction sheets.
First car is off at 9:01 (9:00 plus the car number)
Volunteer #1 is at the gate of the first stage and makes sure that cars re-group and start in 1 min intervals at 9:30.
CAS 30 - Continue / Change Average Speed to 30MPH.
Volunteer #2 is at the finish of the first road making sure that the cars arrive in order and fairly on time. Cars that arrive extra early or late will be asked to 'keep on their minute'. Anyone who has done TSD knows how to keep CAS.
Volunteer #3 is at the start of the next stage to check everyone is in order and on their minute. If competitors want to get ahead or behind 'troublesome people' switch their car numbers. Just grab their card and switch it.
At this point everyone has started the first stage and Volunteer 1 will sweep them out. You (as volunteer #4) head to the finish of the second stage.
Volunteer #1 clears the first stage and heads to stage 3 to start it and you leapfrog your volunteers throughout the recce as much as possible.

* No lead car needed. If the first car does a 10 mile stage road in 14 minutes - assess them a penalty. They were speeding. Period.

* Everyone has time to rest and transit. The first car is not waiting for 20 others to finish and the last car gets 10 minutes to get back on course if lost, etc. Stagger the lunch break as well.

* Place a hidden checkpoint in a nice open area on one of the stages. This will let the competitors know that you are serious about speeding and conduct. Let the competitors know that hidden check points will be watching them. Keep honest people honest.

* The instruction sheets are merely a primer for the route book and which stage notes to be on. No need to re-invent the wheel or make a special route book.
Example:

Happy Rally Recce' 2006
Start time is 9:00 + your car number.
Start page 3 in your route book
Instructions 1 - 9 to the ATC
Pull off to the right and wait for your minute.

Start SS1 Happy Rally North (page 14 stage notes)
Start time is 9:30 + your car number.
CAS 30


Other Suggestions:
* You could easily run a turnaround stage with this method. One volunteer waits at the end of the stage. Sweep arrives and you assign the out time right then and there.

* I Recommend FRS Radios for car to car chatter. No one uses CB's any more and we all should be HAM's but we're not yet.

* Let people use their rally cars for recce'. We have done many TSD's with our rallycar. Rally Masters are hesitant at first - but we have never had a 'drawing too much attention' issue. We did recce' in Olympus with our rally car. Had we not been able to use the Neon we WOULD NOT have been able to recce' :(

* 15 MPH is not a realistic recce speed.
We're adults on public roads. We can handle CAS 30.

* Consider asking one of the local teams that are going to do the recce' to be a volunteer to start or close one of the stages. They will get to recce' while they help you out by running it. You could make them car number 1 and have them start a stage while another volunteer transits it. There are endless tricky things to keep your work force to a minimum.

* We'd be happy to help you organize this.
With a copy of the route book and mileages of the stages any TSD organizer should be able to crank this out.
Post if you have questions.

- Kris & Christine
 
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#4 ·
I know the BC recce events track the start and finish times on each recce pass, but to date I don't think that they have been used to assess penalties (look at trends, maybe)
Keeping the cars in order serves no real purpose, and makeing teh cars all go at the same time leads to someone always showing up late and throwing a wrench into the plan.
Having regular (and strict) speed enforcemnet is the biggest thing that you need to do with recce, the rest of your suggestions seem to add too much 'detail' to what should be a simple task.
 
#5 ·
Lots of TSD style controls?
No - just a car at the start with a person making sure everyone is there and they start on 1 min intervals. You could skip the car at the finish - and just do 1 car at the start of every stage.

Dave - No time cards, no stopping at checkpoints. The hardest 'math' you have to do is card number + time during stage open. You tell your driver to stay at 30MPH and pace note the stage. Good to hear something like this is working in Canada.

I'd love for it to be open recce like in Europe. Consider this issue: At Olympus they had to open and close gates as we traveled the recce' route. These aren't public roads and the rally master (Steve) wanted all of us to stick together. This unfortunately turned into a 15MPH dusty crawl through a lot of stages. When we finished (third to last in the line) we had no time to break - as all the people waiting there for 30 minutes were gunning to leave.

Christian - the benefit would be control over the proceedings in order to DO a recce'. I'm not saying everyone needs to stop and do it this way. Do rally organizers NOT do recce' because they are afraid of 30 rental cars randomly running around the stage roads a day before the rally?? I'm sure the answer is YES.

Keeping the cars in order is control for the organizers. They are able to track time and speed if they wish, control to keep competitors from passing each other on the stages, etc.

So - IF you're recce is NOT working, or you aren't DOING a recce' right now. Consider this control format. That's all... no drama. :)

- Kris
 
#7 ·
I too am not sure what this would accomplish. We just did Rally TN with an opening and closing time for each stage. One worker at the start to note our start time. Potential radar in the stage to keep us honest (and no radar detectors allowed). Maximum CAST of 30 (or 35 - depending on how you read the supps). It worked just fine. We could stop and fine tune our notes when we wanted (so no worries about maintaining car sequence). We had little 3x3" numbers on our street cars.

I guess your suggestion is worth a try (although I don't really want to be burdened with maintaining a CAST whilst also doing recce...).

ymmv

press on,
 
#8 ·
How now?

Bjorn240 said:
Yeah, ok, but the thing is, the standard WRC-format recce seems to solve all the same problems, with a lot less trouble.

And I'm not aware of any place that has open recce anymore anyway. Most places are at least as strict as the recce events here. WRC recce in Mexico was ironfisted and well controlled.

- Christian
Well, let's hear it.
I'm not familliar with the specifics of how the WRC-format recce' works.
Is it just that the stage is open from 9:00 to 9:50 and that's it?
You arrive - start when you get there and move on to the next stage?

- Kris
 
#9 ·
jimmy said:
I too am not sure what this would accomplish. We just did Rally TN with an opening and closing time for each stage. One worker at the start to note our start time. Potential radar in the stage to keep us honest (and no radar detectors allowed). Maximum CAST of 30 (or 35 - depending on how you read the supps). It worked just fine. We could stop and fine tune our notes when we wanted (so no worries about maintaining car sequence). We had little 3x3" numbers on our street cars.
Okay - this sounds great!
Cards marking a car number of some sort.
I can see now keeping the cars in order like a caravan is a little too much - but some may deem it needed.
Open and close times for each stage.
Did they run a 'sweep' through? If they had gated roads - you wouldn't want to lock anyone in. :eek:
You did 30 - 35 - which is a speed limit and all I was getting at with CAS.
Calculators and stopwatches are cheaper then radar detectors - but just saying that you have one on stage is usually enough.

Good discussion gentlemen!
- Kris
 
#10 ·
webkris said:
Well, let's hear it.
Assume that you have three stages in the AM, in a little loop, and three stages in the PM, in a little loop. Then you're provided with a little schedule/recce card like this:

Stage Opens Closes Pass One Pass Two
SS16 0700 1000 x MM
SS17 0730 1100 x CE
SS18 0815 1200

SS13 1200 1530
SS14 1300 1630
SS15 1415 1730

From which you ascertain that you need to start pass 1 of SS16 at 0700 and complete it by 0720 and so on. The times are generally just slightly generous, so you have time (just) to get a sandwich for take-away and fill up on gas.

At each start and finish control, they have a worker who stamps your recce card and initials it. If you arrive early at a control, you wait (this only happens at the first SS of the day). If you arrive late, you do not get to recce that stage (or more likely the 2nd pass of that stage).

The schedule is structured such that there is only one way to complete it and stay on time, and a roadbook is supplied which shows the way from the end of one stage to the beginning of the next one.

WRC-registered competitors are tracked via GPS, and the rest of us were just sternly warned against speeding. And except for that one part where the freeway was missing... we pretty much obeyed.

Ah, the missing freeway. Best rally memory ever.

- Christian
 
#11 ·
I have no idea if they ran a sweep - these were open, public roads (although it would be polite, in case someone broke, or went off). For closed roads, yes you would have to run a sweep.

I did NOT say we ran a CAST of 30/35. I said that was the speed LIMIT. And that is my point, you can stop and debate a corner/instruction, or see a man about a horse (but not at Cherokee). You weren't supposed to back up (but...).

webkris said:
Did they run a 'sweep' through? If they had gated roads - you wouldn't want to lock anyone in. :eek:
You did 30 - 35 - which is a speed limit and all I was getting at with CAS.
Good discussion gentlemen!
- Kris
press on,
 
#12 ·
typical scenario in Canada for the recce events is as follows

recce times are posted as to when each section opens and closes; you have to determine order of stage recce (often not in actual stage running order) where you want to go and when you need to be there.

recce is generally 2-pass

crews get a standard tulip routebook, and one recce card with boxes to check each time they start a stage section. one set of workers (OK, 1 car, 1 person) marks off these boxes so crews can't speed and recce each stage more than 2x

simple. crews have ample time to recce if they don't waste time. there IS time to stop and clean up notes (or clarify complex sections, etc) , but backing up is a Big No-No.

last time you go thru last control, worker keeps your card. recce in rally cars is generally NOT allowed. recce in a bouncy rally car at slow speed sucks anyway. have done recce many times in my F250 haul truck with no issues about "what is really a small crest" type of thing anyway. You just get used to what you are presented with and deal accordingly.

no muss, no fuss, great system.

Dave G

PS--NASA events have adopted a similar setup, except you recce using Jemba notes, a really nice combo.
 
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