So you want to be a Navigator or Co-driver (by Ian Marshall)

    Well, the good news is that there has never been so much information available to the aspiring navigator (or co-driver). The bad news is that to do any good it is up to YOU to make the effort to advance. This means reading, learning from others, gathering information, practising and of course, competing.

    There are others around far better qualified than me to give advice on the intricacies of current road rally timing etc.: Guy Woodcock, Gareth (Gaz) Williams, Phill Harrison and Gareth Price for example are current winners. However, maps have not changed since I started 30 years ago.

Basics...

   While your driver and his mates are doing the he-man stuff on the car, you need to understand that your preparation time is better spent doing the above than playing with foo-foo valves or whatever they fit to rally cars these days.

"A good navigator or co-driver will know; who, where,
when, what, why & how..."

E.g. who do I speak to query results? Where can we get fuel? When do we stop trying to get out of the ditch? What is our start time? Why can’t I book in early? How long is the section? On events it is the navigator’s job to know all this stuff and much, much more.

Essential Knowledge...

Join a motor club!  (I guess you’ve already done that) Obtain a Blue Book (for 2010 the entire Blue Book or the officially titled Competitors' and Officials' Yearbook, is available for download on the MSA Website), even if you are not getting a licence for a while. Read the Blue Book, re- read and read again. You can probably leave out the bit about racing but all motorsport is in there, in sections.  Get to know it and you will gain confidence on events.  Keep your newfound knowledge to yourself until you need it, perhaps querying something with an event official, rallying doesn’t need any more 'barrack room lawyers' – it needs competitors who know what they are doing. Obtain Club Rules, Championship Rules and Event rules, also known as Regs. Then, you’ve guessed it, read, read and read again. For rallying in the modern era you must be on the Internet. You must do email.. End of..
The driver and other team members will be looking to the navigator or co-driver for all their information on events. Essential Map Skills...
   To be a Road Rally navigator you must to be able to plot a route and “navigate” your way around an OS map.  A Stage Rally co-driver can be a sack of spuds but we don’t want to do that do we?  So, what is the best way to learn to use maps?  No doubt you will learn a lot from a Clwyd Vale navigation night.
   If you forget then how to plot a map reference, it is printed on every OS map. 
An excellent tutorial on how to use a roamer is on the Basic Roamer website. On the Ordnance Survey website there is a pdf leaflet “Map reading made easy peasy” You can also Google “how to plot a map reference” & find a variety of good explanations
   Then you need to practice. Do night navs, plot old routes on the dining table until you can do two plots a minute. Read the legend; get to know what all the symbols mean. Then it will be time to train your driver to work with you plotting in the car. My preference was to have the KM square followed by the tenths. Make sure the driver ticks off each reference when plotted. Sharpen the Saw.
Be careful who you listen to...
   Some navigators should be on X-Factor – singing out of tune but convinced they are great. The clues are quite easy to spot.  “I’ve done loads of rallies” - they might have done 2 years or 20 rallies in the novices – does that qualify the giving of advice – I don’t think so!  Most of the top navigators, defined by results… are happy to chat to novices or others about their methods and give tips or advice.  Sometimes you can learn a lot by just watching them as they plot or how they work at a control.  Learn from winners. The internet brings both good and bad sources of info.  Forums (is that the correct plural?) can be useful but if you need to know something about the rally on Saturday contact the organisers not some faceless yoof on the Internet whose mate owns a Nova and is going to spectate.  You are what you eat.  Digest carefully.

Reading / Viewing List:

• The MSA Motorsport Yearbook (aka the Blue Book)

• Regulations (Regs or ASRs) for rallies similar to events you would like to do. Get the most from reading together, cross-referencing one to the other.

• www.thebasicroamer.co.uk Look at the Tutorial – how to use a roamer.

• Nicky Grist Co-Driving DVD

• How To Be A Top Co-Driver - With Howard Davies [VHS]  - from Amazon.

• RALLY CO-DRIVING: A Champions Guide to the Way to the Top (Hardcover) by Phil Short (Author)

• Rally Navigation: Develop Winning Skills with Advice from the Experts (Paperback book) by Martin Holmes

• Stage by Stage – The Russell Brookes Biography. Contains an excellent section on how to describe roads without numbers (and of course I am in it!)

• www.donbarrow.co.uk Still selling the best ‘Poti’ and also still does the A-Z Navigation course.

• www.andrewbargery.com Look at the co-driving section, lots of good practical advice.

• www.codriversolutions.com Training and products with a female slant…

Buy Kit From: www.nickygrist.com , www.pacenote.com

Older books worth reading.
Navigation for Rallies – Les Needham
Any of the Castrol Manuals
The BP Motor Rally Guide
Rallying, Practical Guide by Chris Sclater and Martin Holmes.
Plus many more.
Reading around the subject will give a really in depth knowledge. Road rallying might be new to you but it’s been around a while, why not learn from others.

Ian Marshall

I want to enter a Rally, now what do I do?

   Ok, so you've read Ian's article (on this page) and decided that you would like to have a crack at this rallying malarkey. Ian mentioned 'Regs', or Supplementary Regulations as they are officially known, and it is a copy of these that you will need to obtain. I'm afraid that these days most, if not all, the publication of regs is announced on the Internet. You will have to do a bit of surfing around or ask a fellow club member to recommend an event that would be suitable for your skills.

   There is absolutely no point in trying to 'run before you can walk'. There are a number of events out there specifically geared towards the 'Novice' and this is where you should make your first foray into the sport (assuming that you have already had a crack at a few 'night navs'.

Supplementary Regulations...

   Right, you have selected the event and got a set of 'regs'. Now, you have to read the regs and maybe go through them with a club member who's done all this before. There is a lot of important information contained in the regs, they are not there purely as a cover for the entry form! Ian has a saying that Regs are not 'banana skins' to be peeled off the entry form and thrown away! We all know what can happen on a banana skin! Each paragraph will contain details on the event; where it starts, timing, penalties etc. and loads more that you will need to know including referencing across to the 'Blue Book'. Ok, you're word perfect on the regs! and now it's time to fill in the entry form. I cannot stress strongly enough how important this bit is. We all know that there is a 'credit crunch' strangling our wallets and inevitably competitors are shunning the more expensive events and the smaller 'clubman' style rallies are filling up very quickly indeed. So, when you fill out you entry, it MUST be COMPLETE, in BLOCK CAPITALS and LEGIBLE.

   Entries Secretaries have to wade through lots of entry forms and, rightly or wrongly, when there are only a few entries left, they will select the ones that they can READ.

  All now sorted and you've got an entry, now go out and ENJOY! I'll leave the next bit, actually competing, to somebody else who can talk about what to do on the event...

Pete White

Useful Links:

www.thebasicroamer.co.uk  Roamers, maps, clipboards etc.

www.donbarrow.co.uk Map magnifiers, stopwatches etc.

www.andrewbargery.com International Co-driver

www.codriversolutions.com Does what it says on the tin

www.nickygrist.com International Co-driver www.pacenote.com Books, watches et al... www.msauk.org Our lords & masters! www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk OS Maps etc www.dash4it.co.uk Cheap OS Maps!