'Recce' or reconnaissance to give it its proper name is arguably the most important part of any rally -- gravel or tarmac. If you're even halfway serious about your pace or your safety, you make this part of your preparation a priority.
Recce is a chance to check out the roads you're going to be driving -- albeit at normal road speeds under normal traffic conditions (ie: two way). It's the time when you first write and then fine tune your pace notes. And it's the effort you put into your pace notes, and the detail you and your co-driver include that determines (largely) how you'll fare in the event itself.
It's also an important time for new driver/co-driver combinations to get to know each other and learn to work together. Those of you who followed our Targa escapades in 2006 might remember how much of a team effort a rally event requires -- inside and outside the car. Without good communication between co-driver and driver your rally can be over before it begins.
My 2006 co-driver Justin Hunt not only had to cope with the workload of calling and fine tuning our pace notes, he also had to teach yours truly to know them and most importantly drive to them. In 2007, my new victim, err… volunteer, Bill Hayes, after conferring with Justin, has challenged me to raise the bar and bring my notes more into line with the top-level rally competitors.
This process means including more detail in the notes. How so?
Pace notes are a method via which the road and its twists and turns are described. Various methodologies are used to describe how sharp the corner is (a corner might be graded 1, very tight, to 10, almost straight) and left or right is added to indicate direction. After that it's possible to include where to 'apex' the corner, whether the corner may 'tighten' or 'open' and what comes after it -- another corner, a long straight or perhaps even a combination of a short straight and another corner. The combinations are almost infinite.
When the notes are working perfectly, the co-driver acts almost as the driver's subconscious. Calling a corner or more ahead, he or she recites the driver's own notes on the road from last time it was driven thus creating a mental picture of what's coming up and therefore allowing the driver to safely maximise the car's pace over a competitive stage -- even one with blind crests and corners.
As you can imagine, pace notes (some drivers like to call them safety notes, BTW) are therefore a little like the adage about computer programming -- sh#$ in, sh#$ out! The challenge when recce is underway is to be able to mentally place yourself in the rally car, at race pace and note away.
Some competitors don't enjoy recce. For myself, it is this process and the challenge of then driving to your notes that attracts me to events like Targa. Circuit sprints and racetracks are great fun and any keen driver should give one a go tomorrow, but the teamwork and mental gymnastics rallying requires (dirt's even harder, I'm told) make every stage well done a victory.
Targa Tasmania is unusual in rally terms as it does not use any stage twice in a single event. With around 40 special stages that makes recce a substantial task -- especially for co-drivers.
That said, a good co-driver, like both Justin and Bill, makes recce easy. They flow with the driver and add detail and tweaks to the notes almost without the driver knowing. After a couple of runs through a stage, you're fine-tuned and raring to go.
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