I have been watching WRC competition on SpeedChannel for the last week or so. So I am fairly new to the sport of rally racing. What is the co-drivers job specifically and what is he barking out to the driver or whoever while he is negotiating the course!

WRC drivers are awesome and so are the in-car cams

Thanx for any info!

 

Basically he's reading off of his course-book, yelling out the approaching turns, direction, degree, length, etc.

 

WRC rally rules!

 

In WRC events, the co-driver is reading pacenotes that he and the driver prepared pre-running the course. Different teams use different terminology for the many types of turns, jumps, and road surfaces. In addition to reading the notes, the co-driver also monitors gauges and communicates with the team via radio and/or cell phone.

Most US rallies are blind, meaning that pacenotes and pre-running are prohibited. Co-drivers read route books prepared by the rally organizers. Each organizer has a different way of viewing roads, so it takes some time to get a good feel for each rally.

I co-drove many different rally cars for a couple of years, and it is incredibly exciting. It is not for the faint of heart, however. Try it if you ever get the chance!

 

they stuff like
"30 right 3" which would be 30meters(or some kind of mesurment) right(right turn) and 3(rating of a turn 1-5 etc)

some co-drivers aka navigators use different words, but thats the general idea...

"100 long right 3 negative don't cut" negative is the angle of the banking in the turn, negative or positive, thats important in weight transfer, tire grip, and just incase they might be near a cliff. "dont cut" is to tell the driver not to cut the corner to save time, because there might be some kind of danger there, like large pot holes or the like.....

I personally like Carlos Singhts(sp) and Marcous Gronholm

you know you watch too much rally racing when you know the names of all the drivers and what cars they drive......

 

Totally agree. Those guyz rock!

 

If you are talking about the Spanish guy who drives the Focus, it's Carlos Saenz.

 

Pacenotes are very driver/codriver dependent. For example the positive/negative (actually plus/minus) you refer to means different things depending on the driver. For some it is the bank like you said, for others it is a way to further describe the sharpness of the corner (example a 3 minus would be less sharp than a 3 or 3 plus but more sharp than a 2 plus) I have also seen the plus/minus used for if the corner opens or tightens.

Most teams use numbers 1-6 to describe corner sharpness. (for some 1 is shapest, others 6)
Some use gear number (C. Mcrae/Grist) and others use degree (60 degree etc)

there are a ton of other things but webbracing pretty much summed it up.
here is a good general info link on it: http://www.worldrallying.com/if_tek_pacenote.php

Are you kidding? That is just the beginning.

Evan
-Rally Fanatic

Go Tommi!

 

Even worse is when you know the location and type of cell phones that are in some of the cars...

Also knowing the location of the gear indicator and shift lights is nice..

Will
-who likes WRC

 

I love WRC - but I am beginning to get annoyed by the announcer they have on Speed. We are watching some great footage and he blurts in every once in awhile with information that is useless... "Notice the .com sticker on the hood scoop".

 

ugghh....dont get me started. That guy is such an idiot. I couldnt believe in yesterdays coverage of 3rd leg of Cyprus when Petter Solberg was talking about turning up boost pressure that idiotic announcer said "Sounds good Petter and we suggest using Nitrous!" He is such a moron.

The real announcer is a welshman who does all the announcing and commentary for the UK. Speedvision used to use him until this year they decided to dub over with the idiot.....