I was just asking because I was curious. That's how you learn. I know you've done a lot of this.
The approach we took worked well for us as a pair of novices. The Targa is considerably longer than a stage rally, and if we'd taken a more intensive approach we wouldn't have lasted the week due to sheer exhaustion thanks to extra prep time. We're not pros, we didn't have time to become pros, and we also didn't have the ability to recce so we had to use what we had. Maybe our simplified method only works on Targa, maybe it only works on rallies that are too long or that change too often to be memorized by the driver. But it worked and we did reasonably well.
The WRC guys still have odometers in their cars, so they must be good for something even on stages that are totally memorized. They wouldn't sacrifice the weight otherwise.
Keith Tanner wrote:
I was just asking because I was curious. That's how you learn. I know you've done a lot of this.
Not beating up on on you at all man. Like I said, I can get a bit... vociferous (big words describe it best dontcha know 
) about this topic.
On transits, an odo is important, especially so in Europe where all of the little side-roads to get to the starts of stages aren't labeled. We have it good here in North America. And if you flip upside-down, lose your spot in the notes, but can keep going after you land back on your wheels, an odo that is calibrated properly and you having the distances written down can be the difference between only losing 10 seconds (been there, done that) and 1.5 minutes (also been there, done that).
So an odo isn't useless at all. But you do need to look up There are times when you will be going so fast that you simply can't look up, if you are at that stage, you also should be able to feel the difference between a L6+ and a L6 just with your butt. And if your driver is that fast but you aren't, unfortunately, the driver might need a better co-driver as he is overdriving the co-driver which is super dangerous. My current co-driver, while I trust him, has pacing issues. I don't yell at him, but its a short, swift, loud "next!" when he is behind. There can be a lot of nexts as it only takes a moment to get off pace for a km.
In fact, the feeling you get when initially learning IMO is counter-intuitive. Its like riding a bike/motorcycle. Just like you lean the opposite way to initiate a turn on a bike, the way a car reacts, just by using feel with no visual cue it is easy to mis-interpret sutble movements as turns in the opposite direction as to what they are.
Anywho... just sayin, the co-driver is a lot more important piece of the puzzle then people give credit for. They are in short supply, and ones who truly know what it takes and are serious about it are worth their weight in gold.
HiTempguy wrote:
Anywho... just sayin, the co-driver is a lot more important piece of the puzzle then people give credit for. They are in short supply, and ones who truly know what it takes and are serious about it are worth their weight in gold.
Concur there for sure. One of the guys I crew for (when he's driving) is primarily a co-driver. Teams pay for him to fly all over the country to co-drive for them (and pay him to do it as well), because he's well-known as a very good co-driver.
I'm hoping he'll do one with me when my car is finally built, to get me going while my prospective future co-driver learns the ropes (mostly at the same time as I do). THat said, my car is pretty slow, so he shouldn't have as much trouble :)
