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TSD Rallies are a fun and enjoyable activity for all ages! Except, of course, for those moments when they’re stressful.
I first started rallying in the fall of 2000. Jamie Thomas and I placed 4th overall, which I’m still proud of. Although I didn’t know it at the time, our strategy of staying on course was the key to our success. Getting off course can cause delays far longer than expected. Stay on course!
Over the last couple of years I have navigated in 30 or 40 rallies. My greatest success has always been in rallies where I could “do the math” because I rely on that skill to get us back on time if we ever get off course. With experience, you’ll quickly determine which skills you’re good at and which need work. You can change your strategy of running rallies to accommodate your strengths and lessen reliance on your weaknesses. It might take time, so be patient with the learning process.
There is a lot for the navigator to learn. The skill set is quite comprehensive and includes some math skills. Thankfully, the math required is about a Grade 11 level. Don’t be intimidated by it – it can be your friend. Remember that the math is the most difficult of the skills, and most teams don’t “do the math”. So you should leave the math until you have the other skills mastered.
I have written this document from the point of view of my strengths and weaknesses. You’ll find that some of these things will work for you, and some won’t. Take the time to figure out where you did well and where you didn’t. Then make adjustments to your style as appropriate.
Throughout this document I’ll be referring to Route Instructions. These are given out at the beginning of the rally, and navigators typically have 30 minutes to review the instructions before his/her car is scheduled to leave. To help illustrate the examples I’ll mention, I’ll be referring to the novice version of the instructions for the Example Rally that Dave Beddows has laid out for the BC Classic Rally Series. These instructions are available here:
All of the examples that I use are from Stage 1.
These instructions are in kilometers. If the car you’re in is calibrated in miles, don’t worry – the calculations are exactly the same. Just don’t mix any kilometer values with mile values.
There is a basic strategy that I follow to run rallies. Throughout it all, I remember the important things, and I keep in mind what things are more important than other things. At some points, you have to give up a little bit of detail to keep the big picture in scope.
I also manage my day carefully. There are things that I have to get done, and things I like to get done. I know which are which, and I’m careful that if I can’t do everything the things that I don’t do won’t hurt too much in the end.
The biggest factor in doing well is staying on course. To stay on course, I use my time to first go through the Route Instructions and highlight the important items.
Once the important items on the Route Instructions are highlighted, I use my time to calculate when we have to execute each instruction.
Then during the rally I write on the instructions as appropriate. I usually write down information I’ll need to fine tune things for later stages.
I’ll cover each of these points in separate sections.
The biggest source of problems is the limited time. From the start of the day to the end, there’s rarely more than 8 hours. You have to get everything done in that time. And during that time, you have to be at certain places at certain times. You do not have an infinite amount of time for anything. You have to manage time effectively to do well.
There are 3 important things to remember. In order, they are the following:
Always remember that rallying is just a game. There will be times when the driver and navigator disagree on what the instructions mean. Don’t get yourselves all worked up over it – it’s just a game! If your team makes a mistake, don’t blame each other. That won’t help you get a good score. And when you do make a mistake, keep rallying! Rallies can be 200 miles long and you can make up some ground and still do well.
In order to do well, you must stay on course all day. I have been in several rallies where the top 3 teams have an overall score of less than an Off Course penalty! Do not go off course. But if you do, remember that it is possible to still win a rally so keep rallying. Going off course takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of time to figure out that you’re off course; it takes time to turn around safely; it takes time to get back on course. If you find yourself in a position where you’re not sure of where the route goes, pull over and figure it out. That will be less of a time penalty than going off course and hoping for the best.
The top teams will not only stay on course all day, but will stay on time all day as well. My success as a navigator has come from my ability to stay on time. When my team gets off course, Jamie is very good at getting us back on course and catching up any time we have lost. There’s an easy way of staying on time, and a comprehensive way to stay on time. I’ll discuss them in the “Staying on Time” section.
Each navigator will quickly learn what equipment would be helpful for him/her. I only use a few things:
A digital watch (or clock of some sort) is vital to successful rallying. You have to start stages at specific times, and rarely is there someone there to officially flag you out. So you have to know when to start. Make sure you know how to set the time.
I use the clipboard only when I’m doing calculations. It gives me a firm surface to write on. I use a clipboard that is the size of letter-sized paper. I know that other navigators use much bigger clipboards. The clipboards are usually covered in Velcro and tools of the trade (like the calculator) also have Velcro on the back.
I use pens and highlighters to write important information on the instructions given out at the beginning of the day. I have fully described them in the section entitled “Highlighting the Important Route Instructions”.
Post-It Notes can be used to give important information to the driver. I have described how to use them in the section entitled “Managing Your Day”, in the subsection “Transit Stages and Free Zones”.
The Calculator is essential for performing calculations. I have described the requirements in the section entitled “Staying on Time”.
I use a cloth bag to hold all of my Rally equipment. The car can make some pretty quick transitions, and it’s really nice not to have all of my stuff flying all over the car. And when I get home, I can put the bag aside and pick it up for the next rally without having to worry about having all of my equipment.
I have backups of all of the above equipment except the clipboard and the bag. It’s really important to be able to survive something as simple as a pen that runs out of ink.
As a navigator, you will have a full day of work. Manage it carefully, and rallying can become a rewarding way to spend the day. You will need as much preparation time as you can get. Sometimes this preparation time occurs while you are in a moving car. If you can’t work under these conditions, don’t sweat it. But when you can create preparation time, create it.
Before the 30 minute Preparation Session, it is imperative that you get the Official Rally Time. Set your watch or clock to the Official Rally Time, including seconds. You’ll be depending on this time throughout the day, and there’s no point in posting a terrible result simply because you have forgotten to get the official time.
You will have a 30 minute preparation session to start the day. 30 minutes before the rally starts you will be given the route instructions for the day. Take the instructions and run to the car! Get in, and close the doors and windows. Tell your driver that you need the entire 30 minutes to prepare the instructions. The driver should stay near the car without disturbing you and run interference when other things might disturb you. You’ll need the entire 30 minutes to work on the instructions.
Your biggest enemy throughout the entire day will be the clock. And I don’t mean arriving at check points late! You have a lot of work to do, and a limited amount of time to do them. You won’t be able to get through all stages of the instructions in the 30 minute preparation session. You’ll have to run a few rallies before you figure out how to manage this time wisely. You might want to start by highlighting a couple of sections, then doing the math for those sections.
You can also create more preparation time for yourself by managing Transit Stages and Free Zones correctly. Whenever you are in these stages get your driver to drive faster than the CAST speed (in fact, as fast as reasonable). You want to get to the end of the transit or free zone quickly so that you can sit in a car that isn’t moving and prepare the instructions. This has an added benefit of allowing your team extra time if you get caught behind a slow moving vehicle or a train.
If you can handle it without feeling sick, you’ll also want to prepare the instructions during transit sections and free zones. Tear off the pages for the transit section and give them to the driver. Then you can continue preparing while the driver is (hopefully) staying on course. This might not work for all drivers. Some can’t read while driving, so you’ll have to help with instructions for transit stages.
If you can work on the instructions while in a moving car, you can use Post-It Notes to give you a little more time. Some instructions are a couple of miles apart, and you can create a couple of minutes by letting the driver worry about the next instruction. To help your driver, write the mileage reference and instruction on a Post-It Note and give it to the driver. Then when the driver gets to the instruction and executes it, you can divert your attention from preparing the instructions to running the rally.
Lunch is also a time that you can use to prepare. Just like the initial preparation session, you might have to have your driver near the car ensuring you can work undisturbed. I rarely need all of the lunch hour to work on the instructions, but there are occasions that it is required.
Relax and keep the important things in mind. If you find that you are spending a lot of time doing things that don’t get you a good result, don’t do them! Don’t spend time doing calculations if you haven’t identified the potential traps in the instructions. Staying on course is far more important than staying on time. Time is your biggest enemy and scarcest resource. Use it wisely and you’ll have a good time.
Start your preparation time by reviewing and highlighting the important items in the Route Instructions. This requires some skills, so I’ll cover it in another section.
Once you have reviewed and highlighted the instructions, you can perform the calculations. This also requires some skills, so I’ll cover it in another section.
It is not imperative that you highlight all of the stages before going back and performing the calculations. I typically highlight the morning stages, and then do the math for those stages. Then I turn my attention to the afternoon stages.
With all of the stuff that goes on in the car during a rally, it’s easy to get lost in the seemingly endless Route Instructions. There are several things that you can do to make the instructions easy to follow.
To mark the important information, you should use different colour highlighters to highlight things of different importance. There are some things that are important to know at a glance, which should be highlighted. And you can add notes to the instructions to make them easier to use. By using different colours, you can separate the type information you’re looking for from other types of information.
Remember that all stages of a rally can have traps, even Transit Stages. So highlight all stages of the rally.
To mark the Route Instructions, I use black and blue pens and pink and blue highlighters. When you choose the colours that you will use, make sure you choose colours that are easy to see at a glance, and are quite different so you can differentiate between them quickly.
A pink highlighter is easy to see at a glance, and is hard to overlook. So I use pink to highlight important pieces of information that will help me stay on course.
A blue highlighter is fairly easy to see at a glance, but can be overlooked if needed. I therefore use a blue highlighter to highlight information that will help me stay on time. Remember that staying on course is more important than staying on time, so whatever colour you use for staying on course should stand out more than the colour used for staying on time.
A black pen easily blends into the instructions, which are typically printed with black ink. So I use a black pen to add information to the instructions that I’ll need when running the rally.
You’ll also need something to write notes as you run the rally. I use a blue pen for this simply because I have a bunch of them. It’s important to separate the instructions (black ink) from notes (blue ink), so that you don’t confuse them as you rally.
I use the black pen to write times on the instructions, or to repeat important information. That is, black ink adds to the instructions. I have chosen black for this because the instructions are always printed in black, and I’m adding more instructions which should also be in black. I use a black pen for the following items:
I use the blue pen to write information on the instructions that happen during the rally. I use a blue pen for the following items:
I use the pink highlighter to highlight any important information that will help me stay on course. I use the pink highlighter the following items:
I use the blue highlighter to highlight any information that will affect time. I use the blue highlighter for the following items:
There are a couple of strategies to staying on time.
The first strategy, “Seat of the Pants”, is actually pretty easy and pretty accurate – go 5 km/h faster than the CAST speed. I’ll describe this in slightly more detail (there is, after all, only slightly more detail) first.
The second strategy is fairly involved, but produces the actual times each instruction should be executed. It is comprehensive, and is the source of my success as a navigator.
I’ll first discuss the “Seat of the Pants” strategy, then discuss the calculations that are required to determine the times for each instruction.
The “Seat of the Pants” strategy is as easy as going 5 km/h over the CAST speed. Some teams find that 5 km/h works; others find that 10% works. You’ll have to experiment a little to find the magic number for both the driver and the car. This is a very easy strategy to follow, and should be used for all teams that don’t do the calculations.
For the remainder of this section I’ll be discussing the calculations. Those navigators who won’t be doing the calculations can skip ahead to the section entitled “Running the Rally”.
For the following examples, I’ll refer to the Example Rally Instructions mentioned in the opening sections.
I’ll also assume we are in Car #17. The car number is imperative because the car number indicates when we actually start a stage. For example, in Stage 1, we’ll be starting it at 9:17:00 (yes, the seconds are important).
We’re going to write down the time that we have to perform each instruction. In the example instructions, the “Time Into Stage” is given. This is nice, but you’ll have to figure out the real time by adjusting this time by 9:17:00 for each instruction. So, for instruction #3, we’ll write down 9:19:39.0, which is easier to use than the 0:02:39 that is given.
For each calculation, we’ll end up determining when we have to perform an instruction right down to fractional seconds (that is, there will be numbers after the decimal point). I always write down the entire time so that I can go back and continue with calculations if I’m interrupted. Since I have a solar calculator, the memory can be cleared when I don’t want it to be. I can restart easily if I have the full time to start from.
Each calculation will actually give us the “duration” of each instruction in decimal hours. So for Instruction #3, the calculation will give us 0.0201666 hours, which is the amount of time between Instructions #2 and 3.
The biggest difficulty we’re dealing with is that the calculations are all performed in hours and decimal hours, but we’re used to using hours, minutes and seconds. That is, 9:30:00 = 9.5 and 9:45:00 = 9.75. We’ll be using the [DMS>DD] and [DD>DMS] functions described in the “Calculator” section to convert between hours, minutes and seconds to decimal hours, and back. Another difficulty is that we calculate the time between instructions, but we have to know the actual time that an instruction is supposed to be executed. To differentiate between all of these things, I’ll use the following terms:
To give us the decimal time for each instruction, we have to add the duration for each instruction to the decimal time for the previous instruction. That is, to determine the decimal time for Instruction #3 we have to add the duration for Instruction #3 to the decimal time of Instruction #2. To facilitate this, we’ll keep the decimal time in memory.
This should all come together as we work through the calculations and build the times for each instruction for the Example Route Instructions.
To quickly and easily perform the calculations, you’ll need a calculator that can convert decimal degrees to degrees, minutes and seconds, and back. These functions are normally used for calculations with geometry and circles but the underlying mathematical notions are exactly the same. Most (but not all) scientific calculators have these functions. The buttons are typically labeled [DMS>DD] and [DD>DMS]. DMS is short for Degrees, Minutes, Seconds. DD is short for Degrees and Decimal degrees. DMS will represent the real clock time, and DD will represent the fractional hours we’ll have to deal with. This should become clearer as we work through the calculations.
You’ll also need a memory, but that is pretty much standard in all calculators these days.
I use a Texas Instruments TI-25X Solar calculator. It has a single memory, which is perfectly adequate for what a navigator needs. It also has the [DMS>DD] and [DD>DMS] functions required for our needs. On this calculator, these buttons are actually secondary functions on other buttons. This just means that I have to press the [2nd] button before pressing these keys. This is only a slight inconvenience.
The [DMS>DD] function is used to convert the clock time to decimal time. The [DD>DMS] function is used to convert the decimal time to clock time.
Take the time to learn how to use these functions. You’ll be converting hours and decimal hours into hours, minutes and seconds. You’ll also be entering times in hours, minutes and seconds into the calculator and converting them to hours and decimal hours. Practice these conversions because you’ll be using them all of the time.
I’ll perform the calculations by describing how my calculator works. It is pretty generic, so your calculator should be almost the same. On my calculator, the hours, minutes and seconds (and fractional seconds) are entered and displayed as hh.mmssfff.
To start the calculations, we need to enter the clock time of Instruction #1 into the memory of the calculator. The start time is 9:00 plus the car number of 17, which is 9:17:00. To enter this into my calculator, I type in “9.1700”. I then press the [DMS>DD] button to give a decimal time of 9.2833333. Save this value into the memory.
To calculate the duration, we need to know the distance traveled between instructions and the speed.
The distance is not always given by all rally masters. To calculate the distance, just subtract the previous instruction’s mileage from the current instruction’s mileage. For example, the distance for Instruction #3 is 1.21 km (1.45 km – 0.24 km).
The speed is always given, and in the Example Route Instructions the distance is also given. But there’s a small trick that you need to know. In order to calculate the duration of Instruction #3, we need to know the distance between instructions #2 and #3, and the speed that we’ll be traveling over that distance. So when calculating the duration of Instruction #3, we use the CAST of Instruction #2.
To calculate the duration, divide the distance by the speed. So for instruction #3, the time is 0.021666 hours (1.21 km / 60 km/h). It’s just that simple!
We now add the duration for the current instruction to the decimal time for the previous instruction (which is in memory).
So here are the calculations for Instruction #2:
Here are the calculations for Instruction #3:
Once you get the hang of it, these calculations can be performed quickly and accurately.
Using the [DMS>DD] function, dealing with pauses is straight forward. All you have to do is enter the pause, convert it to a duration and add it to the value in memory. To illustrate this, I’ll describe the calculations for Instruction #12:
So for Instruction #12, I have written down 2 times: 9:35:48.03 and 9:36:18.03. The 2 times tells me that I have dealt with the pause. If there aren’t 2 times, I haven’t dealt with a pause. I frequently forget to deal with pauses, so this strategy helps me go back and find any mistakes.
You will find that you almost never are able to finish all of the calculations for a stage in one sitting. There are always interruptions. To handle these interruptions, I always write down the times with the fractional seconds.
Assume you are running through the calculations and have finished Instruction #3. You have written 9:19:39.00 on the instructions. To start the calculations of Instruction #4, you can check what is in the memory by recalling it, then pressing the [DD>DMS] key to convert the decimal time to clock time. If the displayed clock time is the time for Instruction #3, then you can continue with the calculations as if there was no interruption.
If the displayed clock time is not the time for the last Instruction you calculated, you can “prime” the memory by entering the clock time, converting it to decimal time, and storing it in the memory.
So for Instruction #3, you would enter 9.19390 and press the [DMS>DD] key and get a value of 9.3275. Store this value in memory, and you’re ready to continue with Instruction #4.
There are a couple of important shortcuts you can use to eliminate some calculations.
Firstly, don’t calculate transit stages. For transit stages, you’ll want to drive faster than the CAST to complete it as soon as possible and give yourself some more preparation time. You also don’t have to calculate free zones if the total time for the free zone is given.
Secondly, you can skip instructions if the next instruction has the same CAST. An excellent example of this is Instructions #4 to 6. Here are the calculations:
Once I have the preparation work completed, running the rally is simple. When we complete an instruction, I write a check mark beside the Instruction number so I can find the current instruction quickly later. I also write down the actual odometer readings and times in blue ink for later reference.
About the only thing left to do is to rip the page off once it’s completed. That is, when you complete the last instruction on a page, rip that page off of the instruction set and discard the page. This gives an important benefit: the top page of the instruction set is the current page. If you flip pages over to continue preparation work, you can quickly return to the current page by flipping to the top page of the set.
