So the Rally Note project has been moving along smoothly. It has been working out very well and while I wish I could take the full credit, I was able to save a ton of time due to an article in a GIS magazine, ArcUser. "Building and Calculating Turn Radii" by Mark Price was in the Winter issue of ArcUser and saved me a ton of time in deciding how to best tackle the way to determine a turn. So the GIS data has been built, tested and Im getting results that are much better than I expected. The notes that are being output are not wildly off at all.

The biggest problem I have right now is elevation data. Currently I am using USGS topo from their website and the accuracy on it is fair at best. Unfortunately to get accurate jumps and crests I am going to need something of a much higher level: LIDAR. And...I dont have the dollars for that! Regardless, I am happy with the progress I have made and hopefully in the future I can save up a few dollars and get some LIDAR data in to help refine the end result.

Right now I've been working on the poster of this project for the ESRI User Conference and it is coming along well! Look for an upcoming post, Ill talk about it a bit and show a preview.

Pace notes are a much more detailed type of note system than stage notes because they are created by the driver and co-driver before the event begins. The process is called "recce" (short for reconnaissance) where each team is allowed to drive the stages of the event a few days ahead of time to write their notes. Each team has their own style to writing their notes and because of this comparing them can be difficult. Sometimes one team will notice a detail while another will not, resulting in gaps in their stage times. There have been events where a team who didn't note a crest correctly have ended up crashing while others who marked it correctly had no problems.

Pace notes and the recce system are becoming a less used system due to the costs involved for the event host, the rally teams and also the environment. Large rally events can have more than fifty competitors who will be driving hundreds of miles and with recce demanding two more "laps" of the stages it can quickly add up to a large amount of time and money.

Fifty teams traveling 300 miles each is 15,000 miles of gasoline use, tire wear, engine wear, road wear, carbon dioxide output and noise pollution. Along with many other negatives that are site specific, its large amounts that often reflect negatively towards environmentalist. Because of this many events now use stage notes which help a great deal.

Here are a few examples of what pace notes will look like:

Stage notes are pre-written notes provided to competitors by the event organizers. These notes are written as objectively and consistently as possible and will give a generic description of the stage that will be seen by all competitors. Because of this, often times the first section of pages in the book will be descriptions of how their notes should be read. Diagrams, drawings and examples will be listed in this portion to help each team better understand the process in which the notes were made. There are two typical ways that stage notes are made, Jemba and human measured.

Jemba Notes

Jemba notes are currently the standard in North America, used by Rally America, NASA and CARS in a number of their rallies. Because the notes are generated by a computer and hard data, they will have a consistent and more accurate feel that will be common at any event they are being used. The system generates notes with an accelerometer wired to a special odometer inside a car that then runs the stages to record corners, crests and dips with length and grade. There is also user input of camber, junctions, bridges and other obstacles.

Human Measured Notes

Human measured notes are similar to Jemba notes in the sense that all competitors get the same set, but the difference is that the notes are created before the event by an experienced group of drivers and co-drivers. Typically the positive outlook to these types of notes is that they are being written by a human who is seeing the variables of the stage firsthand. This can bring a more "human" feel to the notes that may make them easier to understand. The downside is that these types of notes are rarely created by the same people at each event. This means that each event will possibly have different meanings for their notes and teams will need to spend more time making sure they understand how the notes should be read.

Handling Stage Notes

Both Jemba and human measured notes make it easier for event organizers and new rally teams to prepare for an event. Unfortunately there are downsides to stage notes and how they are handled by a team can make or break their chances of a finish. Here are a few things to take into consideration when using stage notes...

1. Read the Introduction. Books will begin with a passage from the note authors describing their experience writing the notes and provide specific details about the stages.

2. When were the notes created? Notes will have a date on them to inform teams of when they were written. This can come in handy as the notes may have been created before a change occurred on a stage. Weather changes can also change a set of notes. A dry streambed may become a wet one if there was a large downpour the weekend before the event.

3. Can you mark your stage notes? Depending on who is running an event, teams are sometimes allowed to review and markup their stage notes. This is a great way to personalize the notes and make a stage run more smoothly. Marking up cautions, hairpins and bridges are a great start while experienced teams will remove short distances, combine variables and develop distinct code for certain instructions.

4. Will you get a familiarization pass? Some events allow teams to pass through stages at safe speed to better understand the vocabulary and structure of the notes. This is also a great time to markup your notes if it is allowed in the rules.

Lastly, here are a couple examples of what you would see in stage notes:

So that would be the basics of stage notes. The notes system I am trying to create would also be listed as stage notes. Next week I will be explaining pace notes and how they differ.

If you have seen anything about a rally event you have probably heard the topic of notes fly around, often times with "stage", "pace", "recce" and sometimes "jemba". But if you dont know what it all means, this is your brief guide to that book you see the co-driver flipping through and the whole reason for the project on this site. Im going to break the topic into a few posts with this first one about the basics that will be similar within all notes. Later on I will discuss the different types of notes and lastly how my notes project will compare to the others.

So with this first post I wanted to give any readers who are unfamiliar with rally notes the chance to understand them better. I'll be going over the basics that you will see in notes and how to read them.

Corners

Corners are an important part of notes as they are the most frequent occurance on a rally stage and often times a corner read incorrectly can result in the car going off the road. Corners are typically divided into a 1 - 6 category based on its degree, with 1 being a very sharp turn and 6 being a very fast curve. Along with the number you will see "+" and "-" symbols at times. These marks help fill in the gaps between numbers much like a B+ is a better grade than a B. On the chart below you can see the areas not labeled with a number, as those would have a "+" or "-" associated with them. You'll also see "lg", "Vlg" and "Xlg" which stand for "long", "very long" and "extra long" for turns that go beyond a standard curve. 

 This chart is not a standard used by all, but it gives a good representation of what to expect. Many teams use their car's gearbox as a turn indicator. An "R5" would mean a right turn in 5th gear for that situation.

 Often times corners will be one after another and in a variety of different mixes. There are a few ways to call these situations out. Clicking on the chart below you can see some of the situations that will arise and how they are called out in the notes.

 Crests

Think about driving over a crest, unable to see the road dipping ahead of you and having that feeling of apprehension of what could be on the other side. Now think about that situation while driving a rally car quickly through a forest. Crests can make any straight or corner much more difficult but with a solid set of notes a driver can know exactly how to navigate that difficult situation. Crests come in a number of shapes and sizes and can often be paired with curves and other elements.

If you see the note "R5/lgCr stay L" you would read it at "Right 5 over large crest, stay left". That actually paints a pretty clear picture of what is going on. Its a pretty fast curve over a large hill with an element in the road that requires you to stay on the outside of the turn. What that element is you wont know until you pass it. Sharp rocks jutting from the ground, deep ruts or exposed tree roots are all possibilites. Either way, you'll know not to take the fast inside line of the turn and be safe.

Other Elements

Of course there are so many other elements that can affect a rally stage and those need to be addressed to help provide the driver with a better idea of what is going on.  Below is a list of some of those hazards. Many of these are common and will come up often in an event.

Jumps

Jumps are common in an event and while it might seem like a pretty easy thing to master, there is a lot to the dynamics of attacking a jump. Speed, line and throttle will all change the outcome of how the car acts over a jump. You will often find other notes such as "stay R" together with "jump".

Interview with Dave Shindle

Dave Shindle has been a co-driver in North American since 1999 and has experienced a number of events. He provided me some great information about rally notes and filled in a number of gaps in my own knowledge. Many of the examples of notes I will be posting in future discussions will have come from him. I also asked him a few questions regarding notes and these are his answers...

What was your first event as a co-driver and how did you do? What were your best and worst rally moments so far?

My first event codriving was Black River Stages in 1999 with Nui Srisook in a Mazda RX7. We ended up in a ditch with suspension damage.

My best event would be winning the 2008 Black Bear rally with Crazy Leo.

And the worst event would be crashing at the 2000 Rally of the Voyaguers in northern Canada and driving home to Washington DC with broken ribs.

What kind of stage notes do you prefer? Jemba, self prepared or some other? What are the pros & cons of each type?

Jemba notes are nice because we know what we are getting and can run the event without a recce saving us time and money. Creating our own pacenotes are nice for better teamwork, a greater role for the codriver and going faster and safer.

Can you remember an experience where notes either won or ended an event for you?)

Our pace notes at 2008 Black Bear Rally won it for us but they have never ended or lost an event for me.

When there is a problem with notes, is it more often due to a misread or because the notes were marked incorrectly before hand?

Marked incorrectly before hand

With the internet and programs like google earth, have you heard of such programs being used as a way to learn the basics of a stage before an event starts (such as looking over aerial imagery of the road)? Could such a thing help at all or is reconnaissance the best way to prepare?

Those programs and maps don't help when we have notes. They did when we ran 'blind' tulip rallies.

If a stage is run yearly & the route never modified, how much do notes change regarding the stage? What would be the focus of preparing notes for a well known stage?

It depends. The most variable aspect is road surfaces (slippy, loose, icy, ruts,.. ).  Next would be road improvements (straightening or widening) if any. Snow rallies corner grading can depend on the line the snowplow driver takes.

On a well known stage, we may replace a group of linked instructions simply as a agreed instruction. Notes that would have read 'Crest into R3> tarmac 50L2<' could be called as 'Castledine's Corner' which the driver knows precisely by name.

I'd like to thank Dave for his help with rally notes and answering questions. If you'd like to see more of what Dave has done, along with pictures you can visit his site here. And if you have more questions about notes please leave a comment and if I dont have a definative answer I can forward it on to Dave.

So that pretty much covers the basics of rally notes. Lastly I wanted to leave you with a nice video that can sum up the importance of this topic. Dani Sordo at the 2006 Rally Finland showing how a wrong judgement in speed for a jump can end badly. How do you think the notes for that section would have read?

 http://www.youtube.com/v/LuDGriH_mvk