An interesting approach and I, too, can appreciate the work that goes into preparing stage notes.

I do have an observation though: your problem #2 and your solution strikes me as possibly crossing the line between describing the road and describing how it might be driven.

So were you preparing stage notes or pace notes?

Simon
http://USUKRacing.com

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Simon Wright
Owner/Driver USUK Racing - Home of the USUK Racing LED Light Bars!

North America Rally Map

Ted: are you talking about recce, or are you talking about organizer-supplied notes? You're being cryptic.

Simon: we were trying as much as possible to write stage notes, not pace notes. There were a couple of places where we deliberately crossed the line to give driving tips, but those were generally for safety reasons. But yeah, it's a question that came up a lot. We didn't want to write notes for the racing line, yet in a couple of places the racing line distances could be off by up to 20m when compared to the geometric line.

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Self-righteous douche canoe

I believe Ted is talking about recce.

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-Brian

Hey, I am digging up dead horse bones here. I don't understand the difference, whether the notes are written during recce or another time.

Yes, Canadian events typically provide recce and that is when we usually created our notes. If there is no recce, then the organisors can nominate a team to go out and create notes for all. Yeah, liability is a BIG issue in the US, duh. Yeah, drivers are gonna blame everyone but themselves when the go off. Yeah, it is a thankless job. Everyone will see things a little differently.

My point is, if I can create notes, then any ass-clown can. The front running teams can do a much better job. I also have experience borrowing other peoples notes. That works, too. We have also shared our notes with others. Not perfect, but bettter than nothing if you miss recce or are too cheap to buy a copy of Antoine's or Pat's notes.

Jemba/GPS/computers/accelerometers are NOT nessessary. Don't make it more complicated and expensive than it needs to be. But, then again I was happy running blind rallys listening to tulips.

My last experience listening to jemba (so I was told) notes was at O'Neils 2009 winter rally. I thought they were crap compared to what Tall Pines provides, which I am told is created by McGeer and Williams.

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Ted Mendham
www.rensport.net

tedm Wrote:

> My last experience listening to jemba (so I was
> told) notes was at O'Neils 2009 winter rally. I
> thought they were crap compared to what Tall Pines
> provides, which I am told is created by McGeer and
> Williams.
>


Having run tall pines the last couple of years, the notes are excellent, corner calls are consistent and they flow very well. I have been to another rally with organizer supplied notes that were flat out dangerous. I was a novice competitor and I could tell the notes were very bad, an opinion that seemed to be shared by other competitors at the event.

This is mitigated somewhat since Jemba notes are fairly consistent from rally to rally. Lets say I want to run a rally I have never run before. And I don't really know any of the competitors on the organizer. I can be fairly confident that the nomenclature and structure of Jemba notes will be like what I ran at other Jemba events. Not saying Jemba notes are better than custom human generated notes just that they are fairly location agnostic.

iam soo late and new
1.recce notes
2.pace notes
3. tulip
4. Jemba
What is the difference between all of these, if you prefer to link a page then do so.

OK, I'll give this one a shot:

1 & 2) Recce notes. Recce (Reconnaissance) is your scouting run (or runs) over the rally stages (at street car speeds, usually in a regular car) so you can either:

a) make your own pace notes
b)modify existing notes

There are different variations on this theme, from multiple runs over the stage roads to a single "notes familiarization pass." Most Canadian national events have been doing two-pass recce, the US events vary widely.

Here is an example of pace notes :



Notes tend to be fairly descriptive of the entire stage, with the goal being to give the driver the ability to "know" what's around the next corners or over the next blind crest so he or she can go for the gas or the brakes as appropriate.

3) "Tulips" are basic picture diagrams of a section of road. Look at the background design of this page. Those arrow thingies are tulips. Often times the tulips will only describe tricky sections of road or intersections, you can go miles between tulip instructions, so it tends to limit drivers to "driving what you see."

4) Jemba notes are essentially automated pace notes. Instead of only humans making notes, a fancy-schmancy computer with accelerometers and such is strapped into a car and driven down the stages multiple times at regular street car speeds. After a little bit of human intervention for "gotchas," the notes are printed out and look sort of like typed-out pace notes. Many would argue they aren't as thorough as pace notes.

This is about as basic as it gets. Do some Googling to find out more.

---

Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

Sounds like i would rather go with notes written by a co driver who knows the driver. i always thought the driver never drives the stages until race day is this not true?

My understanding is that usually the driver is telling the co-driver what he sees (or wants to hear), not the other way round. If I was the driver, I'd be saying what I see, and maybe listening if there was some dissent from the co-driver (what, a driver who listens to the co-driver? riiiight).

My only stage rally experience was with tulips, so you'd better ask the more experienced about how that works.

---

Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

Andrew, Good desciption one thing to add. There is difference to keep in mind between pace notes and jemba, which many people describe as "course notes." Pace notes are there to help your pace or speed where course notes are just telling you what the road is doing independent of speed. This is a subtle distinction but it can have a big impact on driving. Here is an example.

In a jemba sytem if I had a corner sequence like L6 300 R3. I have a gradual corner followed by a long straight and then I will have to brake hard for the R3. Now here is another sequence of corners L1 into R3. In this case I would be going very slow through the L1 and then I could possibly be full throttle through entire R3. These driving actions all have to be inferred by the driver based on a description of what the road is doing.

Now lets say I am writing my own pace notes where I decide that the number correlates to how hard I can drive in the corner with 1 = heavy braking, and 6 = full throttle. In the second example I might be able to rewrite the instruction to be L1 into R6. Since I know I will be going slow coming out of the 1 the 6 will tell me to just stand on it for the up coming corner. Other features that pace notes have that course notes do not are instructions about what line is fastest through the corner. Or if you can cut the corner because during recce there were no rocks in the ditch. These changes can have a big impact on the speed you are able to maintain in a corner and thus for an overall stage.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2009 02:12PM by Andrew_Frick.

BJosephD Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sounds like i would rather go with notes written
> by a co driver who knows the driver. i always
> thought the driver never drives the stages until
> race day is this not true?

w/recce the driver/co-driver drives the stages together in a NON-competition vehicle. Then they can go over whatever they've been given to confirm/edit/etc the those instructions as they see fit.

For example....Prescott we had recce w/full notes supplied by the organizer, I thought they were very accurate (well, I was new, so take that for what its worth) and we added very little.

Gorman....recce, but no notes. I wrote my own notes for two sections, and another section was so tight/slow that we didn't really need notes.

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Jon Burke - KI6LSW
Blog: http://psgrallywrx.blogspot.com/

tedm Wrote:
> My last experience listening to jemba (so I was
> told) notes was at O'Neils 2009 winter rally. I
> thought they were crap compared to what Tall Pines
> provides, which I am told is created by McGeer and
> Williams.

Williams still works with PSport. He won't write notes for events which have provided Jemba notes. Ask Anders.

Jon Burke wrote:

"w/recce the driver/co-driver drives the stages together in a NON-competition vehicle"

This is not always true. Perce Neige allows us to use our competition vehicle for recce. This is a big cost saver for us, as we don't have to bring 2 cars up.

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Ted Mendham
www.rensport.net

tedm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jon Burke wrote:
>
> "w/recce the driver/co-driver drives the stages
> together in a NON-competition vehicle"
>
> This is not always true. Perce Neige allows us to
> use our competition vehicle for recce. This is a
> big cost saver for us, as we don't have to bring 2
> cars up.

Yeah I always wondered about that "non-competition" vehicle.
There's been times when all i own is the rally 96 and a car prepared the same differing only in: lack of cage and final drive of 4.88 vs 5.45.
Same stith welding, same nicely reinforced a arms, same springs, same shocks, same engine but on single downdraft 40/40.

And I've seen how Ford did their "recce" cars.

Seems if rules writes had any brains, they'd concentrate on proscribing naughty behavior---all they'd have to do to clarify what they need to regulate is to recall the car doesn't have a mind, and it doesn't have therefore intentions, and it won't do anything the DRIVER doesn't make it do----on the DRIVER's part, since a naughty driver can be naughty in his rally car, or in any other car for that matter, and it is the naughty behavior that needs limiting.

But alas, the rule was arrived at in some fantasy "ideal" world and if you don't have money to have another car then it proves you're simply not serious enough.
You're not worthy.

WE'RE NOT WORTHY!!!
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Ted Mendham
> www.rensport.net

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Hey John,

I think it has less to do with naughty behavior on behalf of the rally crews, and more to do with stickered/numbered cars on the rally roads for an extra day, (and how the local public perceives this.)

-Bill