Regularity sections. Talk to me!
Discussion
Novice navigator. Done one event. Had fun. No regularity sections in that one.
Have two historic rallies coming up, both with regularity sections.
I am not bothered about Halda or Brantz or similar flash trip meters.
I assume with a stopwatch (or two for safety) and the odometer and a set of speed tables I can at least make a go of it?
I assume I just correct for odometer accuracy by calculationg the error (say 2%) and then picking the speed table by applying this error to the target speed? (ie if 30 mph use the 30 x 1.02 = 30.6 mph table)
Or am I talking hogbollix?
Re: speed tables - shall I just make them on excel. Or is it worth £30 at Don Barrow?
I think the latter.
That's about it.
Cheers.
Have two historic rallies coming up, both with regularity sections.
I am not bothered about Halda or Brantz or similar flash trip meters.
I assume with a stopwatch (or two for safety) and the odometer and a set of speed tables I can at least make a go of it?
I assume I just correct for odometer accuracy by calculationg the error (say 2%) and then picking the speed table by applying this error to the target speed? (ie if 30 mph use the 30 x 1.02 = 30.6 mph table)
Or am I talking hogbollix?
Re: speed tables - shall I just make them on excel. Or is it worth £30 at Don Barrow?
I think the latter.
That's about it.
Cheers.
This is going to depend on which event and how serious you want to be. If the sections are short with no speed changes then you might get within say 30 seconds or so without a trip. If you were to do a hrcr round without a trip it would much harder. If you are at all serious and want a decent result buy a trip. Personally I wouldn't bother without one. Brantz are the easiest to use and best value.
Ian - this is John my navigator - he brought us victory on our first outing in the DS!
To answer your question:
Rally 1 - Ilkley Jubilee (we are running in the HRCR Clubman Run rather than rally)
Rally 2 - HERO's Scottish Malts (the full Rally one this time, not the tour)
Both in about a month.
To answer your question:
Rally 1 - Ilkley Jubilee (we are running in the HRCR Clubman Run rather than rally)
Rally 2 - HERO's Scottish Malts (the full Rally one this time, not the tour)
Both in about a month.
Ok johnn I'd still recommend a trip for the run. It's much easier to floow the tulip road book if you can easily see a trip in front of you. The jubilee has long regularity sections with numerous speed changes, so having a double display with intermediate is ideal, you can also reverse them if you wrong slot and are backtracking. I prefer the big clear display on the bigital Brantz but as lowdrag says they aren't eligible on some events. Speedtables need to be simple and clear I think the big book that db sells is too clumsy, hrcr do them much cheaper and better for what you are likely to need.
I will pop over and say hello at skipton then, it's the York classic next weekend might be worthwhile coming over to look at what people are doing, I'm out in the Alfa, first daylight event for more than a year now!J
I will pop over and say hello at skipton then, it's the York classic next weekend might be worthwhile coming over to look at what people are doing, I'm out in the Alfa, first daylight event for more than a year now!J
I finished mid table (top half) in an HRCR clubmans rally using just the car's standard odometer which, because the button was broken, I had to reset using a pair of mole grips, difficult when trying to drive at a steady 27mph. It was only our second rally. I think it would be difficult to get much higher without a proper trip and we had the advantage of frequent top 3 times on the tests (but at least one maximum time too). From what I remember I called out incements to my navigator. The tulip section allowed us to roughly calculate how accurate the speedo / odometer were and "calibrate" our times. We had a stop watch (navigator's wristwatch) and were often within a few seconds of the target.
I think not gertting lost is the most important early on in your rallying career. Its better to be a little late than a little fast.
I think not gertting lost is the most important early on in your rallying career. Its better to be a little late than a little fast.
Shoestringracer said:
I think not getting lost is the most important early on in your rallying career. Its better to be a little late than a little fast.
You can be perfectly on time but if you are on the wrong road you'll never make up the time
If the av time changes through the reg section thats when it gets complicated
Good Luck
First and foremost, you need to be going in the right direction. So until you get competent at plot n bash, don't get too worried about regularity.
You can easily beat a lot of people by just going the right way and not booking in before your due time anywhere.
For regularities, your need for equipment is as follows:
At the start of each regularity section, you need to reset your trip to zero and reset your stopwatch to zero.
>>> So you need one each of these things.
You then drive the section, checking at regular TIME intervals that you have covered the correct DISTANCE for the speed you are following.
>>> To do this you need speed tables (see below).
So far, this is easy...
Many events will have at least one speed change part way through each regularity. When the speed changes, you need to reset your trip meter but also record how long it's taken you to get to that distance (so you can calculate the error and carry it forward) - it's much easier if you stop your current stopwatch and start another one.
>>> That means a second stopwatch is a big help.
Some events will give you a tulip road book to follow during regularities, with the distance for each junction shown. Realistically you need a second trip meter for this purpose which you can run independantly to the one you're using to monitor your speed.
>>> ie you need a second trip.
So... in summary, for regularities with speed changes you need 2 stopwatches and 2 trip meters.
In addition to this, if you go the wrong way on a regularity, you need to be able to reverse the direction on your trip meter so that it counts down rather than up. The alternative is to do lots of calculations using your second brain.
Not all tripmeters have this facility!!
Speed tables:
For a basic setup, this should cover 0 to 10 miles at each whole mph from 20mph to 30mph. Some events will specify speeds down to 1 decimal place, but that's nitpicking until you get really good or you're doing an international event with a very long section.
Don't buy Don Barrow's, they're too complicated. Make your own in Excel.
You can easily beat a lot of people by just going the right way and not booking in before your due time anywhere.
For regularities, your need for equipment is as follows:
At the start of each regularity section, you need to reset your trip to zero and reset your stopwatch to zero.
>>> So you need one each of these things.
You then drive the section, checking at regular TIME intervals that you have covered the correct DISTANCE for the speed you are following.
>>> To do this you need speed tables (see below).
So far, this is easy...
Many events will have at least one speed change part way through each regularity. When the speed changes, you need to reset your trip meter but also record how long it's taken you to get to that distance (so you can calculate the error and carry it forward) - it's much easier if you stop your current stopwatch and start another one.
>>> That means a second stopwatch is a big help.
Some events will give you a tulip road book to follow during regularities, with the distance for each junction shown. Realistically you need a second trip meter for this purpose which you can run independantly to the one you're using to monitor your speed.
>>> ie you need a second trip.
So... in summary, for regularities with speed changes you need 2 stopwatches and 2 trip meters.
In addition to this, if you go the wrong way on a regularity, you need to be able to reverse the direction on your trip meter so that it counts down rather than up. The alternative is to do lots of calculations using your second brain.
Not all tripmeters have this facility!!
Speed tables:
For a basic setup, this should cover 0 to 10 miles at each whole mph from 20mph to 30mph. Some events will specify speeds down to 1 decimal place, but that's nitpicking until you get really good or you're doing an international event with a very long section.
Don't buy Don Barrow's, they're too complicated. Make your own in Excel.
Rallying generally is split into two forms, stage rallying and road rallying.
Stage rallying is what everyone is familiar with, ie helmets + pacenotes + forests.
Historic classes are now very popular in stage rallying, and a historic stage rally is really just a modern rally run in old cars. Historic has gained in popularity as people have realised that they can have much more fun per pound in something oldschoool than in a modern. So anything RWD is popular, Escorts primarily at the moment. That's why these cars are now worth £££s more than 10 or 15 years ago.
Historic stage rallying (in the UK at least) requires cars to be run in the specification that they would have been in period, so for instance an Escort would be Grp 4 spec but sequential boxes etc aren't allowed. Age categories are:
pre-68
68-74
74-81 (which has been relatively recently introduced).
Someone would get into historic stage rallying typically through love of old cars + previous involvement in stage rallying. Quite a lot of folks get into stage rallying by just buying a prepped car and diving in at the deep end, although a day at a rally school is required to get the appropriate license. The main attraction in stage rallying is in driving, with navigators quite often being ex-drivers who have run out of money!
Road rallying is very different. It's public road based and has a navigational element - you don't actually know where you're going until you're on the road and as a result you need a good navigator.
Being based at least partially on open public roads, various methods are used to ensure speeds are appropriate. For sections that are on public roads, there's a blanket average speed of 30mph. That might sound slow, but in the dark around narrow lanes / tracks / fields / farmyards when you're plotting the route as you go along, it means as fast as you can go, especially in a 40 year old car.
Sections on public roads are sometimes run in daylight, and then a different timing method is used called 'regularity'. This means that speeds are quite slow, although it's very testing for navigators.
Historic road rallies normally use sections off road, which can be anywhere between autotests to quite high speed runs through forests. These are 'special tests'.
There are plenty of non-historic road rallies as well, but these are normally run an night only. So historic road rallies are more than just modern rallies run in old cars.
People will typically get into historic road rallying through various different routes:
- possibly they've come through the traditional motor club route and started with 12 car rallies (an entry-level version of the same, popular with many smaller clubs)
- possibly they've come through the classic car scene and started by doing non-competitive touring type events
- possibly they've been attracted by the high profile international historic events like the Classic Marathon
Age categories are the same as for stage rallies (for UK MSA events at least). I might get corrected here, but you're typically not allowed to compete for overall honours in 74-81 cars.
There's a good cameraderie in both historic stage and road rallying, probably more so than the modern equivalents.
Do you fancy giving it a go?
Stage rallying is what everyone is familiar with, ie helmets + pacenotes + forests.
Historic classes are now very popular in stage rallying, and a historic stage rally is really just a modern rally run in old cars. Historic has gained in popularity as people have realised that they can have much more fun per pound in something oldschoool than in a modern. So anything RWD is popular, Escorts primarily at the moment. That's why these cars are now worth £££s more than 10 or 15 years ago.
Historic stage rallying (in the UK at least) requires cars to be run in the specification that they would have been in period, so for instance an Escort would be Grp 4 spec but sequential boxes etc aren't allowed. Age categories are:
pre-68
68-74
74-81 (which has been relatively recently introduced).
Someone would get into historic stage rallying typically through love of old cars + previous involvement in stage rallying. Quite a lot of folks get into stage rallying by just buying a prepped car and diving in at the deep end, although a day at a rally school is required to get the appropriate license. The main attraction in stage rallying is in driving, with navigators quite often being ex-drivers who have run out of money!
Road rallying is very different. It's public road based and has a navigational element - you don't actually know where you're going until you're on the road and as a result you need a good navigator.
Being based at least partially on open public roads, various methods are used to ensure speeds are appropriate. For sections that are on public roads, there's a blanket average speed of 30mph. That might sound slow, but in the dark around narrow lanes / tracks / fields / farmyards when you're plotting the route as you go along, it means as fast as you can go, especially in a 40 year old car.
Sections on public roads are sometimes run in daylight, and then a different timing method is used called 'regularity'. This means that speeds are quite slow, although it's very testing for navigators.
Historic road rallies normally use sections off road, which can be anywhere between autotests to quite high speed runs through forests. These are 'special tests'.
There are plenty of non-historic road rallies as well, but these are normally run an night only. So historic road rallies are more than just modern rallies run in old cars.
People will typically get into historic road rallying through various different routes:
- possibly they've come through the traditional motor club route and started with 12 car rallies (an entry-level version of the same, popular with many smaller clubs)
- possibly they've come through the classic car scene and started by doing non-competitive touring type events
- possibly they've been attracted by the high profile international historic events like the Classic Marathon
Age categories are the same as for stage rallies (for UK MSA events at least). I might get corrected here, but you're typically not allowed to compete for overall honours in 74-81 cars.
There's a good cameraderie in both historic stage and road rallying, probably more so than the modern equivalents.
Do you fancy giving it a go?
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