1-5 is the degree of the bend in the road. 1 is a slight turn,
5 is almost a right-angle turn (like 60 degrees). There's also
the square turn (square left) and the hairpin turn.
It helps the drivers maintain higher speed as they don't have to
"slow down" to anticipate the turn. If you don't know how sharp
the corner is you will slow down to what you THINK the corner is
and that may be slower than what you can do had you know.
--KC
The copilot tells me pilot the 2 next corners and the pilot just does what
he's told, sometimes (at least once a year) one team ***s up in the notes
and that makes for a nice film sequence, something like (left 3 on crest)
when it's a right 5...
In the same style i suggest you watch the winter olympics, and the week
after or 2 weeks after you have the paralympics which are the games for the
handicapped, one of the most impressive events is the blind ski, a blind
skier makes the slalom and his "partner" is 10 meters behind him yelling
"right" and "left", you can imagine the amount of trust/coordination it
requires to do this...
>1-5 is the degree of the bend in the road. 1 is a slight turn,
>5 is almost a right-angle turn (like 60 degrees). There's also
>the square turn (square left) and the hairpin turn.
For instance, in the system Nicky Grist and Colin McRae use, the
corner number stands for which gear should be used. There's a whole
lot of other information in the pace notes on top of just corner
speed, like distance to next turn/mark, tightening/opening corner,
cautions(rocks, logs, ice-patches, et.c.), crests...
Rallying(which strictly speaking isn't racing if you don't mind me
getting a bit anal), comes from the actual word Rally(Rallye if you're
french). I.e. a gathering. As late as in the 60's the Monte Carlo was
a "Rally"-rally, and the cars started from different parts of Europe
to converge in Monte Carlo.
Nowadays they describe the road ahead on the special stages, as well
as doing a load of other tasks in between like keeping tracks of the
time-sheets with arrival times and the like and not getting lost on
the transport stages. :)
> >Why do rally drivers get a co-driver to help him with the
> >directions?
> That's because rally drivers aren't very smart and they'd get lost
> without directions.
> 1-5 is the degree of the bend in the road. 1 is a slight turn,
> 5 is almost a right-angle turn (like 60 degrees). There's also
> the square turn (square left) and the hairpin turn.
--
Gunnar
#31 SUCKS#015 Tupperware MC#002 DoD#0x1B DoDRT#003 DoD:CT#4,8 Kibo: 2
"a language is a dialect with an army and a navy"
The "1-left" etc is to inform the driver what the next corner's like
(actually, it's usually the next corner but two given the speed these
folks re going!). As mentioned elsewhere, a "1" corner is just a kink,
pretty much flat-out, while a "5" is a much steeper bend, with "square"
and "hairpin" also.
This, while the most popular system these days, isn't the only
"numeric" system in use - there's also a version where the numbers
refer to the gear of the corner (so a "1" here would be a very *slow*
corner - let's hope the driver knows which system is being used!).
There's also what's called the "descriptive" system of pacenotes, which
is less popular these days than it used to be, but is still employed by
a couple of the top drivers - Juha Kankkunen and Alister McRae. This
uses a complicated set of codes for various corners - "easy right", "K
left", "absolute right into long open left" and so on. Numbers between
indicate distances betweeen corners - "easy right, 40, opens into long
flat right, 200" and so on.
As to why the co-driver is there in the first place, the name itself
("co-driver" rather than just "navigator") gives you a clue. Modern
rallying is essentially a series of sprints, but up until the 1980s it
was much more of an endurance event, with longer events (the RAC Rally
lasted 5 days for years), far longer distances on the open road between
stages and very little sleep for the crews. So the co-driver would
drive the car on the road sections while the driver got some sleep.
Also, remember that some rallies still don't allow pacenotes (I believe
this is the case in most rallies in Canada, and even the RAC Rally
didn't allow them until 1990), so the co-driver has to "read the road"
with the aid of a map and "road book" rather than "just" yell out the
notes.
On top of all this, a second pair of hands comes in very handy after an
accident or breakdown!
--
"After all, a mere thousand yards... such a harmless little knoll,
really" - Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh.
The GPL Scrapyard: bits 'n' bobs at http://www.hillclimbfan.f2s.com
John
Proof that CMR2 is a good sim... there's a mis-called corner in Kenya, I
think. Co-driver gets the direction wrong.
Either that or I always***up at the same place...
Dale.
HTH,
Kendt
Welcome to the wonderful world of Ralley! Check out WRC or
speedvision.com, they should help you learn more of this extremely
complex sport.
I.R.DINGUS!
>>Why do rally drivers get a co-driver to help him with the
>>directions?
>That's because rally drivers aren't very smart and they'd get lost
>without directions.
I wish GPL had a co-driver option.
