RE: routebooks
>Right, and that's the thing I'd like to see more detail of.
>
>I don't care if there is a series of fast corners, but I do
>care about the 2 hairpins that are close together, or the 3
>water bars.
>
>My comment about route books in the other thread came from
>experiencing the Rim 2003 routebook (remember not many
>people get to see these in a rally where notes are
>available) and the Doo **** 3/4 routebook and the PFR
>routebook.
>
>The Rim routebook contained some things we needed to know,
>but the mileages where way off, water bars were missing, and
>some very tight corners were missing. We almost decided to
>just use it for transits...
>
>Doo **** 3/4 (a club event) had a great routebook and it had
>a nice frequency of instructions. It didn't have every
>single corner, but it had everything you needed to slow down
>for. I gather this is typical for a NW club event. It was
>easy to tell we were still on stage by the instructions, and
>while I drove the fast sections like you would a blind
>rally, it was good as a safety net to tell you, ok, very
>tight hairpin coming up.
>
>PFR had sort of "stage notes light": tight left, medium
>right, fast left. They had every single corner, pretty much.
>After a few mediums that turned out to be a bit slower, we
>reset ourselves to drive it more like a blind rally. I liked
>it but unlike the Jemba notes where you have some confidence
>in the system used, I found myself driving much slower.
>
>Now that I've driven stage notes, I really do prefer them
>even as a novice. But for your first event, maybe not, too
>much to cope with.
>
>I liked the effort the PFR organizers went to, but the
>accuracy is a concern.
>
>The "NWR" style routebooks that have a good frequency of
>stuff you need to know, but not every corner, and it really
>does feel right.
>
>Route books like Rim 03 are clearly inadequate to safely
>compete. I think the SCCA should try and come up with some
>minimum standards here. I mentioned this issue in my CER for
>the event.
>
>It would be great to post a sample of this stuff online ---
>the differences are quite noticable.
>
>Glenn
I agree that the NW route book is as good as it gets Nationally before you go to some kind of note system. Every gotcha is there as the guys that check the final route have driven for years in rally's.
The Rim routebook isn't as bad as you make it sound. Sure its not the most overinstructed book in the world, but generally you have a nice mountainside to look at that pretty much explains where the road is going to go and how tight the next corner is. Plus the speed of Rim overall is about 40% of most any other event. The course it just too tight to go much over 60mph. Anytime you get into third gear is memorable. That said, I drive harder at Rim than at any other event.
If the note generating process can be done for Clubrally at say $100 a car, I think this would be the way to go. I'm not sure that could be done though, Pete could tell us better. And how many budget minded Clubralliests even want to pay the extra $100?
I think though, that we need cost containment for entry fees at the Club and Pro level, and getting our volunteer organisers to provide more routebook either adds to their time or expense. Do you want this passed down to you the competitor? Thats what we're ultimately up against; how much can you expect from volunteer organisers? Make it too time consuming for them, and the'll eventually do something else.