Rallying -- A Primer A rally is an automotive contest in which teams comprised of a driver and a navigator follow a prescribed common route at specified legal and reasonable average speeds. PRECISE driving and navigating are stressed. The idea of a rally (sometimes called a TSD rally for "Time, Speed, Distance") is, quite simply, to follow an established course at an established speed. Penalty points are assessed by straying off course, by driving too fast or too slowly, or by missing course markers (landmarks). The car with the fewest number of penalty points (lowest score, as in golf) wins. In our rally most cars won't be sports cars -- so the rally is planned for safety and scenery -- not spectacular automotive performance. If you've never rallied before, or if it's been years and years, you still have an excellent chance to win because the rally is run with no special rally equipment. For our rally the only equipment needed is the odometer in your car, a watch capable of showing minutes and seconds, a calculator and pencil and paper. It'll be easier for the navigator to work if you also have a clipboard. Here's how it works: When you arrive at the starting point on rally day you will be assigned a starting time and car number and will be given your information packet. Cars will line up at the starting line in sequence and will begin the rally at two-minute intervals. You get to open the packet one minute before your starting time; one minute later you're on your way! The detailed instructions (in your packet) will tell you when to turn, how fast to go, what course markers to look for and so forth. You follow each instruction in sequence - religiously. Rule #1 is "Don't get lost"! Staying on course is the most important thing about rallying. If you get off course, get back on as soon as possible. Sometimes just finishing wins the rally! The second rule is to maintain as close to the average speed (dictated by the rally instructions) as possible. You will be penalized for arriving early or late at the finish line and at intermediate CheckPoints. And to discourage speeding, the penalty for arriving too early is twice as great as the penalty for arriving too late. There are all kinds of sophisticated instruments available to help rallyists but in our rally you'll have to do it with no more than your car's odometer, a watch, a calculator and pencil and paper. Oh, yes -- one more little thing. All regular automobile odometers are intrinsically inaccurate. And the one that set the rally course (the RallyMaster) will almost certainly register differently from yours. So when the instructions say to go 39.3 MPH, what do you do? All well-run rallies have an early segment called the "odometer check leg". This is a measured distance, usually ten miles or more, at the end of which you compare your odometer to the RallyMaster. Suppose your odometer reads 10.2 miles when the RallyMaster said 10.0. You must develop a conversion factor to adjust the dictated rally speeds. To do this, you divide your odometer reading by the RallyMaster mileage (10.2/10.0) and use the quotient (1.02) to multiply by the all dictated rally speeds. So, in this example, if the instructions said to average 41.3 MPH you would actually try to average 42.1 MPH (41.3 x 1.02). That's it technique-wise. But the most important thing is STILL to STAY ON COURSE! Each rally leg (the distance between CheckPoints) stands on its own. If you have a large error on a given leg, don't worry; every time you go through a CheckPoint it's a new ball game. There will be one or more CheckPoints along the course where your performance will be measured. In some rallies, you are expected to stop at CheckPoints; at others, you are not. The driver and navigator have decidedly different roles and must work as a team in order for the team to win. The driver's job is to drive safely, maintain the correct average speed and to look for course markers The navigator's job is to alert the driver to course markers, average speed changes and turns -- and to figure out whether going a bit faster or slower than the current pace is indicated. Remember that this is a team effort; relationships have been shattered by rallies... Rally Rules The following are a set of general rules applying to well-run rallies: 1. Follow each instruction until the next one takes over. 2. Write the answers to questions asked in the spaces provided. 3. Write your car number in the upper right-hand corner of the instructions. 4. Unpaved (dirt or gravel) roads DO NOT EXIST for the purpose of the rally. 5. Driveways, dead ends, entrances to parking lots, shopping centers and so forth also do not exist for rally purposes. Terms The following terms will usually be found in rally instructions; they simply permit standard abbreviations. cm " course marker" Used only to reassure you that you are on course. A cm can be on either side of the road unless the instruction says differently. Cms are easily visible from the car. If the cm appears in quotation marks it means "sign that says" rather than the object itself. For example: cm "Winslow Church" means "sign that says Winslow Church" cm Winslow Church means the church itself. bear go in a direction of less than 90 degrees to your present direction of travel as, "bear left". An alternative meaning is "large fierce animal" but we won't normally use that one on the rally. acute a turn considerably more than 90 degrees relative to your present direction of travel. Y intersection an intersection shaped like the letter "Y" where you are approaching the fork in the "Y" from the bottom leg. You can only bear right or left at a Y intersection. T intersection an intersection shaped like the letter "T" where you are approaching from the bottom leg; at a T intersection you can only turn left or right. cast means "change average speed to". Change your average speed to the reading given and maintain that speed until further notice. opportunity for rally purposes, an "opportunity" is a valid street or road. For example, "turn left at the third opportunity past Winslow Church" would mean to turn left at the third PAVED road past the Winslow Church. Driveways, dead ends, parking lot entrances and, of course, dirt or gravel roads are NOT opportunities nor are one-way streets going the wrong way. One more word about road surfaces: In any well-run rally (except those for off-road vehicles) unpaved roads, driveways, etc. simply do not exist. If you are told to turn at the third opportunity and you encounter six unpaved roads or driveways, none count as opportunities. Tips & Techniques These are in no particular order: Look an instruction or two ahead; in case you miss a course marker, you won't get confused. Bring along a snack; you'll be in the car for a while. Every few miles, calculate how long it should have taken you to get where you are and slow down or speed up accordingly.  For example, suppose your corrected speed is 35.6MPH.  First, convert MPH to miles per second (MPS) by DIVIDING the speed by 3600 giving .00989MPS.  When you've gone exactly three miles (for example) record the time on your rally watch.  DIVIDE the number of miles by the MPS (3 x .00989) and you'll see that it should have taken you 295 seconds (4 minutes, 55 seconds).  Refer to the time you just wrote down and if you were early or late, slow down or speed up accordingly.  When there's a speed change, you can calculate your error at that point and take that into consideration for the next leg.  If a train leaves New York traveling at 65MPH in the rain, and a train leaves Los Angeles traveling at 50MPH... If this all seems to much, forget the calculations and just stay on course at the closest speed you can manage.  Rallies (many rallies) have been won this way...   Click HERE to return to my stories...