Very enlightening interview with a friend from Norway on analytical driving---and learning.

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Eric Ewert
Thats unfortunate that you killed a motor, do you know why it happened? Was it something preventable?

Tough I would rather not admit it I think it was a consequence of a too early down shift.
Rev limiter, and not too early downshifts might be a good start. But I am no engine builder.
And also, if you have a problem, fix it 100% even if it means forfeiting a rally.

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Eric Ewert
With a few people here building and running volvo's like myself do you have any advice on certain modifications/ specs to avoid with these cars to keep costs at a reasonable amount? The end goal with mine is to have it at a spec that sounds similar to yours (N/A motor with good output, already is 4 linked with taller coilovers, etc). Also do you have any suggestions on things you NEED to do with these cars? Sounds like you have plenty of knowledge with what breaks on them!

Well, it was really very little Volvo left.
But I would suggest:
- Rebuild the dampers twice a year
- Rebuild dog box twice a year
- Watch the uniballs (and find someone that are good quality and ok price)
- Drive it like you stole it

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Eric Ewert
As far as the pacenotes you say the 1-6 system is your baseline. Is this still what you recommend even for us just starting out? Or should we try keeping it simpler? So far i've found pacenotes a little tricky to do a good job of so if you could offer a few key points to focus on with them that could prove very useful. Your example above makes sense but with where im at currently it would be too much to absorb in the short amount of time available, im simply not Hayden.

- Yes, I reccoment the 1-6 system (1 the most severe turn, 6 a very slight turn)
- Focus on lenght (short is 1/4, half is 1/2, normal is 1/1, 1/2 long is 1,5 etc)
- Fucus on tightening or opening
- Practice pacenotes, its probably the cheapest and most stage time rewarding practise you can do
- Also watch inboards

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Eric Ewert
I've always been curious what the folks running group H and group F in finland use but unfortunately the language barrier has prevented me from understanding.

- F cup in Finland runs with out pace notes, only warnings

Hey Eric,

Good advice above from Ole, in general.

You have a lot of good resources for pace note education locally, 'two-pass recce with write your own' notes have been the way we've been doing rally here for 12 years.

Regarding notes... with the novice in mind:

1 to 6, with 6 being fast.
I recommend this as well, mostly because it will 'match' Jemba notes that you'll run at Rally America events, if you ever go to one, until they turn to 2 pass recce.

Pluses and minuses.
The initial thought is that even 6 grades of corner is enough (or too much) for newbies, but I have seen time and again that any driver can benefit from pluses and minuses as intermediate grades. (not as an 'attack or take easy note, which I have seen as well)

Tightening, camber
Noting that a corner opens is good, but not critical as it is obvious and easy to adapt to.
Tightening is REALLY important since you can be over committed and it harder to correct for.
Significant camber on corners is important. Off camber that can send you off the road or positive camber that allows you to hit the corner harder.

Distance between elements
This is one of the 'corrections' I usually push on drivers when I co-drive them. Having a consistent measure between elements makes a HUGE difference in the confidence in your notes and your ability to commit to them. (particularly after crests, but important in general)

Crests
While we don't see a lot of jumps in western Canada, there will be crests regularly. Crest placement is something I see regularly done poorly (Jemba is usually horrible at this) and it is one area where it can bring you a tonne of time on stage if done well.

Corner Length
Good information to have, for sure, but I've found this only really helpful if you're on the limits of the car. The exception to this is the really, really long corners where it continues longer than you'd expect. Most drivers I've ridden with that have used corner length notes have been absurdly inconsistent in their use... often adding confusion rather than confidence. (I find those are the most commonly edited notes on the second pass)

If you want to get together and chat about notes, let me know.

---

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Last Updated, May30, 2022

Very good advice from Keith.

One thing that should be added is that the most important thing is to know what line you should drive during the rally, and drive the same line on recce.

As we saw with the example provided by Grant Hughes with the too early entry, here its important to have the right line in the pace notes so you dont need to figure out what line to drive after hearing the pace notes:

Example:
Long 4 left 20 1 right 100

This is a section where its vital with a late apex (or touch point as I call it) in the long 4 left, and its also vital to keep left on the short stretch before the 1 right.

So the pace notes could here be:

Line in long 4 left keep in over 20, 1 right 100
(Line is the Petter Solberg/Phil Mills way of describing a late apex)

A novice can thing that this will be to much, but actually it will work the opposite. Because you have this extra info in the notes, you will no longer stress to figure out how to drive the section after hearing the notes, and this frees up brain capacity to handle the driving.

That this line would be both easier and faster to drive frees up capacity even more so this is a very good spiral.

A LOT of rally drivers have come to the end of a stage and thought that they were slow, but when they get the tie card they see that they were in fact very fast, and this is because they have entered this positive spiral.

This is very difficult to understand if no one shows you/tells you how its supposed to be done, because the natural way of trying to be fast is to make it feel fast, and in many cases that is slower against the stop watch, and higher risk.

I realized at our event this weekend that I was way overloading my codriver with notes. Removed everything but the corner grade and direction and distances and everything went much better. It was a simple road that I memorized quickly but it is easy to get distracted from driving with a wandering and lost codriver. Always sucks training codrivers.

The language is hard for me. I am not a huge fan of the Jemba dictionary but hard to move beyond it without direction. I suppose we could just make it up as we go...

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Grant Hughes

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NoCoast
I realized at our event this weekend that I was way overloading my codriver with notes. Removed everything but the corner grade and direction and distances and everything went much better.
The language is hard for me. I am not a huge fan of the Jemba dictionary but hard to move beyond it without direction. I suppose we could just make it up as we go...

The Jemba dictionary isn't bad... and much like the '1-6' decision, it is best to stay close to it if you intend on running any events that offer Jemba.

This might seem obvious, but the important thing about the language of your notes is that BOTH driver and co-driver need to understand what the language means instinctively. (I've had a couple drivers use 'nips' as a modifier, which I still don't quite understand.) Ultimately, if the co-driver doesn't understand what they are saying, they won't have confidence and they will get lost easily.
Additionally, keeping the syllable count down is important, but not at the cost of clarity.

A couple of examples.

I had a driver who's previous co-driver would call out the 'letter' rather than the direction. "ell" 6 into "Arr" 5. I converted him, with some argument, to having me say left and right... which stopped him from thinking.
Same driver... I suggested we add a small crest that existed on the road just before a tight corner with an exposure. He balked, saying that he could see through the crest to the corner and that the car would be settled before getting to the corner. I countered that adding the small crest would be a confidence builder that would confirm the notes were right and that he could commit more to them. We were SIGNIFICNATLY faster. (~1.5 sec/k in one event with no other changes)

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First Rally attended (2000), First Rally competed in (2001)
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Rallies attended (120) Countries attended rallies in (11)
Last Updated, May30, 2022

I think the dictionary comment is good. I think part of my new codriver training that's been lacking is ensuring he knows what everything means.
By far the biggest improvement I've seen is from NOT making drastic changes to the car between events. Driving the same car for multiple events makes any increase in speed due to driver improvement not car or setup speed. This is easily the largest error I see most people make.
Ole said something along the line of, it is the engineers job to make the car faster. It is the drivers job to make the driver faster. So many focus on how they can be an engineer and try to make the car faster instead of focusing on making the driver faster.

---

Grant Hughes

Quote
NoCoast
By far the biggest improvement I've seen is from NOT making drastic changes to the car between events. Driving the same car for multiple events makes any increase in speed due to driver improvement not car or setup speed. This is easily the largest error I see most people make.... o many focus on how they can be an engineer and try to make the car faster instead of focusing on making the driver faster.

Absolutely agree. I see so many people chasing technical aspects of their car, be it engine or diff mapping, suspension set-up, or what-ever, when they are still not driving the car the way it should be.
The other big point is to make changes in a proper testing setting, not from stage to stage on an event.

---

First Rally attended (2000), First Rally competed in (2001)
Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0)
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Rallies attended (120) Countries attended rallies in (11)
Last Updated, May30, 2022

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Not Trolling
I had a driver who's previous co-driver would call out the 'letter' rather than the direction. "ell" 6 into "Arr" 5. I converted him, with some argument, to having me say left and right... which stopped him from thinking.

That was probably unnecessary. What happens is that you hear a sound and you associate with a thing and that gets locked into short term memory. So whether it's "left", "ell", "gauche", "links", or "vasen", it doesn't matter - as long as you hear it used repeatedly in the same fashion it'll mean "<---". You don't hear the word and then translate it and then ponder its meaning and then decide each time your codriver says it. You only do all that the first couple of times and then you're just doing the auditory pattern-matching after that.

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Self-righteous douche canoe

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hoche

Quote
Not Trolling
I had a driver who's previous co-driver would call out the 'letter' rather than the direction. "ell" 6 into "Arr" 5. I converted him, with some argument, to having me say left and right... which stopped him from thinking.

That was probably unnecessary. What happens is that you hear a sound and you associate with a thing and that gets locked into short term memory. So whether it's "left", "ell", "gauche", "links", or "vasen", it doesn't matter - as long as you hear it used repeatedly in the same fashion it'll mean "<---". You don't hear the word and then translate it and then ponder its meaning and then decide each time your codriver says it. You only do all that the first couple of times and then you're just doing the auditory pattern-matching after that.

Well, he said it was MUCH easier to hear the word than just the letter.

---

First Rally attended (2000), First Rally competed in (2001)
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dreamsofjvl

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john vanlandingham
No comments on what's presented--which is several layers of interesting?

I do find it interesting that he thinks the pinnacle of a rallycar is a Saab 96. It'd be fun to see someone build one into a more modern spec and have some fun in 2wd in North America for shits and giggles.

Working on that right now. Should be a competitive G2/2wd light car come September.

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hoche
You only do all that the first couple of times and then you're just doing the auditory pattern-matching after that.

The first couple of times?

Pattern-matching is no different than muscle-memory. Left means left, right means right. Practice takes time. So yes, if you do something screwy that isn't typical of your language of choice, it does inherently put you at a cognitive disadvantage while trying to process information. It's a bit more than "the first couple of times". Hell, I'd say about 50% of drivers screw up their lefts and rights on a regular basis, no need to make it any worse!

Beyond that, considering very few people get to run continuously with the same co-driver, it makes little sense to immediately handicap yourself, work your way around that instead of learning a relatively standardized method of notes, and then forcing new-to-you codrivers who have probably never heard of your zany note system to have to learn during an event.

01001001 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110111 01110010 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001

While I know how to write in binary, it certainly wouldn't make any sense for me to have my notes written in it, or have the co-driver say 01001100 for "L".

Note to self: Write next notes in binary

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dreamsofjvl
it makes little sense to immediately handicap yourself, work your way around that instead of learning a relatively standardized method of notes, and then forcing new-to-you codrivers who have probably never heard of your zany note system to have to learn during an event.

One of the toughest things I've done as a co-driver was to adapt to Martin Rowe's notes that were 1 as a fast corner and 10 as an accute. (the rest of the notes were similar enough.) Nathalie Richard told me she had similar difficulties and that it took a LOT of testing and competition time to become comfortable with it. Certainly more than 'a couple times.'

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First Rally attended (2000), First Rally competed in (2001)
Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0)
Driver (8), Co-Driver (47), Drivers (19)
Clerk (29), Steward (1), Official (17), Volunteer (5)
WRC Spectator (1), WRC Photographer (6), WRC Observer (4)
Rallies attended (120) Countries attended rallies in (11)
Last Updated, May30, 2022

Richie Kavanagh touches on his version of Nose End First AKA "Drive er straight sideways" in this action packed stage review.......

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Power means nothing if you cannot control it!

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Not Trolling

Quote
dreamsofjvl
it makes little sense to immediately handicap yourself, work your way around that instead of learning a relatively standardized method of notes, and then forcing new-to-you codrivers who have probably never heard of your zany note system to have to learn during an event.

One of the toughest things I've done as a co-driver was to adapt to Martin Rowe's notes that were 1 as a fast corner and 10 as an accute. (the rest of the notes were similar enough.) Nathalie Richard told me she had similar difficulties and that it took a LOT of testing and competition time to become comfortable with it. Certainly more than 'a couple times.'

And I as a driver have had to adjust to the reverse for the co-drivers here who go 6-1. I have to say it still catches me out every now and then but getting better. I am going to have to find out more nosefirst info, as the Ranger is so light on the back it does like to rotate I just have to learn to manage it through all the corner elements.

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Yes, it's a Ranger.
Xr4Ti, it is rwd and was made in Germany.