Happy Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr New Year to all youse wise guys. Interesting words from a Finn.

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Morison
Does that help?

Yes, it does.

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Dazed_Driver

Really Timm??

So when and where did the whole note and recce thing come about? My hiatus was 1993 ish until 2004.

I caught a couple guys pre-running making notes before an event back in the day and we gave them the boot immediately.

Frankly my view of this is I know how to drive blind rallys fast and I have no clue how to make notes so I rather do blind rallys!

I first learned about rally back in 1979 when I was way too young to drive so I spent the next 10 years trying to learn how to read roads etc till I was 19 in 1989 and drove my first rally. (I did some co-driving prior to that in Fast Sweep and other course cars & even co wrote a route book in the early 80's).

I have done two rallys on notes (the buy them type) and they seem OK, I only process about 30% of what I am hearing, I just drive like blind for most of the rally. For that 30% I do process, when I get that bit of extra confidence I really keep my foot in it where on blind rallys I would lift.

Honestly I am now at a competitive disadvantage because I spent years learning the wrong skill set. Had I known we would all be making notes I would have spent years working on that skill rather then reading roads. But hey on the two rallys where I tried notes, we won 2wd on one of them and were leading 2wd on the other till we ran out of electrons and DNF'd. So I guess I can do OK with notes. Some day I will try the make my own thing and see how that goes.

I think it is up to the organizer to figure out what makes since for them to get the best return for their effort, us drivers will adapt to the times.

This is a pretty interesting and maybe important topic.



As I am just starting out, I'll give the newbie viewpoint;


Do notes make make it safer for a new driver?

for me, having full notes coming in is really tough, maybe because I'm a little deaf and slightly autistic. Its hard to concentrate on the driving and lining up the calls with what I see, I think it might be the biggest challenge and skill in rallying. My first little off into a big ditch was because I didn't hear the second part of "L6 into R3" My brain was still chomping on "oh boy! 6! lets floor it" Luckily my car is nice and slow. So notes made me faster, but I got ahead of myself trusting them. Like I said, it seems to be the hardest part.

What about recce and notes vs. tulips?

To me the fun part of rally is driving blind on a new road. If the codriver can tell me whats around that corner, even more fun. To me the most important part as a new driver is having a codriver who can tell if I am hearing the calls or not, and is comfortable telling me to slow down/speed up/quite fucking around. So for a new driver, an experienced codiver is a big deal. Just tulips might be boring for codrivers, but I found it great for my first time out, and I was lucky enough to get some good coaching, to bad I wasn't listening.

I'd imagine new codrivers need to learn too, and just tulips would be plenty of work.

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alkun
My first little off into a big ditch was because I didn't hear the second part of "L6 into R3" My brain was still chomping on "oh boy! 6! lets floor it" Luckily my car is nice and slow. So notes made me faster, but I got ahead of myself trusting them. Like I said, it seems to be the hardest part.

out of curiosity, what was before the L6? I ask because, if I have a call like that and there's any amount of speed before the L6 (like: R5 150 L6 into R3), then I'll modify the notes to read: R5 150 !BRAKE L6 into !L3

Maybe that's just cause its easier for me to get going a bit faster? dunno, but during recce, if we make those kinds of changes, I tell my co-driver to make sure I respond to his 'caution'.


I can also say, as a new co-driver with a new driver in a fast car, I had no issues telling Keith to 'slow down' for a corner if I thought he was going too fast (which was determined by my personal butt pucker factor at the time.) But I can see how some co-drivers might be hesitant to tell someone how to drive(?) again, i dunno, but for me, it was simply self-preservation (and a big fucking exposure).

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Originally Posted by Juha_Koo
Well I wouldn't say that Finnish Championship is boring but the amount of N4 Mitsus and Subarus does feel sometimes kinda lame. There's only, I'd say, five to ten top guys in FRC classes (4wd and 2wd) who drive their car spectacularly and with real push as others are learning to drive recce-rallies and/or new powerful cars after a long period with less powered cars and/or RWD cars.

Sounds alot like the USA, but more like 2-5 top guys are not boring to watch.

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Originally Posted by Juha_Koo
Also the fact that all FRC drivers have learned to drive blind without notes before starting to drive with notes brings all crashes/outs/etc mistakes to nearly zero.

That's an opinion stated as a fact. We could rephrase it to say, 'also the fact that the FRC drivers are using notes means that the number of crashes and mistakes are nearly zero.' He attributes the lack of crashing to not using notes when really there are two contributing factors, all immeasurable as to their contribution. Having notes and the experience of the driver. Blind rallying is a small part of the experience factor. Not to derail, but the fastest driver in the US currently has probably never driven a blind rally ever. To certain drivers (like Gene described his son), a blind rally stage is really only blind the first time you drive that stage. I would put that 'asset' as one of the most important. Anyone remember that one time on the WRC pre-program where they would read a few notes, usually like a line or two, to a driver or codriver and they could tell you exactly which stage of which rally it was. It was very impressive. I can play a rally on Richard Burns Rally 5-10 times and start to memorize some of the trickier parts. Mark can play a stage once or twice and have most of it memorized. Sure blind rallying can make a driver better at things like reading tree lines and recovering from too high of entry speeds. It can also mean lots of repairs for those times you don't recover or you will lose a bunch of time because you are too timid. I personally prefer the Richard Burns approach of building up speed by progressively learning just how quickly and such I can take any specific type of corner. Others are the Colin McRae type where they learn how much they need to slow down to make that. The latter is encouraged and rewarded in blind rallying, but at a much larger expense of wrecking cars. I'll stick to notes and my progressive learning style personally.

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Originally Posted by Juha_Koo
As in F-Cup and other non-FRC rallies which are blind there's loads of action for everyone because there are dozens of competitors ready to fight for the victory or at least podium places. Trying hard with no notes = I guess you all know the end result.

So, if they had notes there wouldn't be as many wrecks? I like that idea though it ruins the stream of Group F crash videos.

Thanks for posting that John. Good to see that even in Finland some of the people are realizing the importance of notes in making this sport safer and more affordable and more competitive!

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Jon Burke
I don't know about other drivers, but I watch my in-car footage over and over and over again and learn from not only my obvious mistakes, but all the mistakes I made that weren't so obvious, and all the corners where I was successful but could have been quicker.

I do as well. It's one of the reasons I really like the Contours is the wide angle lens lets you see more. I seriously considered a brake pressure gauge just so I could see when and how hard I was braking. The squeeky brakes kinda achieve that, but a numeric pressure gauge could really show it.

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NoCoast
Not to derail, but the fastest driver in the US currently has probably never driven a blind rally ever.

Actually it is almost certain that Antoine started on blind events in Quebec.

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Morison
Actually it is almost certain that Antoine started on blind events in Quebec.

Who? Anyhow, didn't I say 'not to derail'?

Antoine L'estage ...