Noob Crew Questions

We'll actually have a crew for Ojibwe this year which we've never had so I have some questions:

1. They need to register with Rally-America as "crew" correct? If so, anyone know what that fee is? I want to reimburse them.

2. I've seen some co-drivers write a "movement schedule" for their crew. Is this necessary? Isn't there some packet that tells crews where to be and we can give them our fuel depot time window?

3. If heaven forbid we need to extract the car from a stage how do you get this info to the crew? I was planning that we'd have a smart phone that we could get GPS coords and our crew would have a Garmin + smart phone to get them to us. Worst case scenario, we tell them the stage and distance which I assume stage maps are in the crew packet.

4. There's a practice stage and I was hoping the guy that maintains my car could borrow my co-driver's safety gear and go for a ride along. He's inheriting my '97 Subaru OBS hopefully this year to turn into an OL car and I'd like to give him a taste of the action but not sure if that's allowed.

TIA folks!

1) The fees are listed in the RA rules, I believe. Annoying, but trivial amounts I believe.

2) Movement plans are extremely valuable if done well. The biggest advantage is they put all the information about what the team plans to do in one book so anyone can check their copy to see what is expected of them.
Detailed movement plans will include directions to/from service to hotels as well as directions to stage starts/finishes for recovery purposes.

3) Many events do include comprehensive service plans. Many don't. I generally don't rely on the events to provide anything and will do my best to figure out recovery information on my own. GPS coordinates and navigation only work if the stage road is on the GPS maps... they aren't always there, and there are a shocking number of roads that don't go through that appear on GPS maps, and you might end up trying to cross an active stage (in some cases) to get to the abandoned car.
I wouldn't assume the crew gets stage maps.

4) In Canada, at least, giving rides on a practice stage is not only allowed, but encouraged. Going back over a decade, my first ride in a rally car was at the shakedown for Ojibwe in 2000 (or 2001.) I don't think it would be a problem, but you should check with the event organisers or RA to be sure.

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john vanlandingham
Blame is for idiots. losers.

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Nubby
We'll actually have a crew for Ojibwe this year which we've never had so I have some questions:

1. They need to register with Rally-America as "crew" correct? If so, anyone know what that fee is? I want to reimburse them.

$5 crew license.

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Nubby
2. I've seen some co-drivers write a "movement schedule" for their crew. Is this necessary? Isn't there some packet that tells crews where to be and we can give them our fuel depot time window?

Yes, you should print out information for your crew. It could be as simple as "be here at xx:xx pm" and rely on them to get there (unwise) or as detailed as directions, maps, dates, times, what to do to the car and when, etc...

If your crew is new this information will be valuable to them.

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Nubby
3. If heaven forbid we need to extract the car from a stage how do you get this info to the crew? I was planning that we'd have a smart phone that we could get GPS coords and our crew would have a Garmin + smart phone to get them to us. Worst case scenario, we tell them the stage and distance which I assume stage maps are in the crew packet.

Typically the rally will do a few things for you when you crash. They typically will have net control contact the service area and tell them what car has gone off and to find your crew. They will tell your crew where you are (like 4.5miles in on stage 4) and then it is up to your crew to use that info to come and get you.

Or, a heavy sweep might pull you out to an intersecting road or to the finish, or maybe all the way back to a paved road or service.

Don't rely on cell service to contact your crew.

I've gone off at Ojibwe before. Had no cell contact with my crew. They got the message of where i was at (a side road) and my crew just followed the maps I printed out for them to come and find me.

You could also equip your car & service rig with a ham or commercial radio for communication.

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Nubby
4. There's a practice stage and I was hoping the guy that maintains my car could borrow my co-driver's safety gear and go for a ride along. He's inheriting my '97 Subaru OBS hopefully this year to turn into an OL car and I'd like to give him a taste of the action but not sure if that's allowed.

TIA folks!

This depends on the rally. Some allow it, some don't. There is also the old adage "It's Better to Beg for Forgiveness than to Ask for Permission"

Great info, thanks!

I guess my co-driver has a new job, movement plan writer-upper.

I'll ask about the ride along through a 3rd party in case I take the "beg forgiveness" route.

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Nubby
2. I've seen some co-drivers write a "movement schedule" for their crew. Is this necessary? Isn't there some packet that tells crews where to be and we can give them our fuel depot time window?

The thing about "some packet" is that nothing about is optimized for your team. For example, it could have all the driving directions to drive the 70 miles to the optional fuel spot. But wait... you don't need the extra fuel, so you DON'T want your guys heading out there.

Laugh if you want... but I've seen it happen. And worse, when the car gets back to service, the guys were still driving back from the optional fuel where the car didn't even stop! So they had no crew!

So the movement plan is all about making the plan of what YOUR team is going to do. They can get pretty big if you want to put the effort into it: where everyone is sleeping, phone numbers for all people, schedules for starting each day, when you meet to get breakfast, maps... you can go nuts if you want to.

Anders

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

Christian Edstrom has a great, simple movement schedule on his site that you can use as your basis. Definitely worth it and as you get better it will become more of a cut and paste type of document. Mine will typically start when the first person starts their travel and end when the last person gets home. Print multiple copies and carry one in the competition car so you can all be on the same page.

One great side benefit is that creating a movement schedule is basically your study time for the schedule so you will be much more confident in your own movements.


http://www.christianedstrom.com/tips.htm

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Zap zap my ass...

remembering my first rally crew experience... Coming from no pit crew experience with no one else to help in the learning process. Here are some things I would have appreciated

-Schedule/location including each service expectation (ie fuel only)
-Generic punch list of check items (depending on crews experience) things like having ice for cool suit, or having the lunch cooler ready were items I definitely didn't anticipate.
-Packet.... if you give crew a packet day of the event or night before there is good chance it will won't get read in time and thats only if the crew even receives it (I've only seen paperwork one time the rest it was "first service at 10, see you then
'). We have always driven out/setup pit area without any input from the driver/co driver and then you feel like a dumbass when you have the wrong tires out, or no ice and they are frying in the car. If you are using volunteers who aren't rally regulars- over communicate.

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slidewayswrx
Christian Edstrom has a great, simple movement schedule on his site that you can use as your basis. Definitely worth it and as you get better it will become more of a cut and paste type of document. Mine will typically start when the first person starts their travel and end when the last person gets home. Print multiple copies and carry one in the competition car so you can all be on the same page.

One great side benefit is that creating a movement schedule is basically your study time for the schedule so you will be much more confident in your own movements.


http://www.christianedstrom.com/tips.htm

Thanks for the link, it's nice to see what a movement plan looks like.

For several years now we've been using Google Docs to prepare our Movement Plans. It has several advantages...

* All members of the team and crew can see it before the event.
* All members have the opportunity to amend it as needed before the event.
* Team members can print their own copy before they leave home.
* It's easy to get an electronic copy for your digital device de jour.
* It can be smart (I do initial fuel calculations in Google Docs).

Ours also doubles as a service guide and a consolidated location for information useful to the service crew (Radio frequencies, food preferences, etc).

We print a copy for the rally car and service rig.

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

North America Rally Map

The Google Docs is a good idea, I'll have to see if my co-driver has a Google account.

Here's a dumb question: Roughly how far in advance of a national do the supps come out so we actually know where the stage starts and service locations are so we can start on our movement plan?

Haha, i'm happy to just have a service truck make it to the service location if it isn't centralized.

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Nubby
The Google Docs is a good idea, I'll have to see if my co-driver has a Google account.

Here's a dumb question: Roughly how far in advance of a national do the supps come out so we actually know where the stage starts and service locations are so we can start on our movement plan?

For most rallies it's around 90 days, but sometimes that doesn't happen. I've typically seen 60 to 90 days for RA nationals.

Many times you can email the committee if they don't have it online yet and they might be able to give you a rough schedule so you can start your planning.

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Nubby
Here's a dumb question: Roughly how far in advance of a national do the supps come out

No, that's an excellent question. The supps are exactly where you should look for planning information.

It's hard to get precise numbers, because you could count several different dates as "when posted". Appearance on the event's own site, on the sanctioning body site, on facebook, a message on specialstage. In any case, rough idea:

2013			Date	Supps Posted	Delta
Sno*Drift		01-25	11-29		57
100 Acre Wood		02-22	01-08		45
Oregon Trail		05-03	02-18		74
STPR			05-31	04-16		45
NEFR			07-26	06-18		38
Ojibwe Forests Rally	08-23	07-05		49
LSPR			10-18	08-20		59

About 48 days out on average. Snodrift that year was uncharacteristically behind, they are typically a bit over 70 days out.

Cheers,
Anders

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

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Anders Green

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Nubby
Here's a dumb question: Roughly how far in advance of a national do the supps come out

No, that's an excellent question. The supps are exactly where you should look for planning information.

It's hard to get precise numbers, because you could count several different dates as "when posted". Appearance on the event's own site, on the sanctioning body site, on facebook, a message on specialstage. In any case, rough idea:

2013			Date	Supps Posted	Delta
Sno*Drift		01-25	11-29		57
100 Acre Wood		02-22	01-08		45
Oregon Trail		05-03	02-18		74
STPR			05-31	04-16		45
NEFR			07-26	06-18		38
Ojibwe Forests Rally	08-23	07-05		49
LSPR			10-18	08-20		59

About 48 days out on average. Snodrift that year was uncharacteristically behind, they are typically a bit over 70 days out.

Cheers,
Anders

You with your data.

Perfect, I was hoping it wasn't some deal where a week or two before the event the supps come out and we're left scrambling to develop a movement plan. I like plenty of procrastination buffer.

Also, when an event does post their SuppRegs you should make a habit of checking regularly for updates as some organizers may revise it.

Some organizers may label it as draft and put publication dates on them. How useful is that!

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

North America Rally Map