How Co-Drivers Prevent Drivers From Crashing in Rally Racing

In rally racing, the drivers are drifting and jumping around with their cars at incredible speeds but they don’t and can’t do this alone.

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See the difference? In rally racing, drivers need a co-driver that reads something called “pace notes” which I will explain later but in short, the co-driver alarms the driver about a turn which they’re about to go through but that not the only thing that the co-driver screams to the driver. The driver responds with a nod to approve that they fully understood the co-drivers command. So what does the co-driver yell to the driver? Here is a small explanation! Imagine a Lancia Stratos HF Rally just dominating around a rally circuit, the co-driver may yell something like this to the driver “Forty, left five minus over crest opens over 40, tightens four plus, into triple caution right four over big jump off camber”, This all is info about what the driver should do and just like I told you before, the driver quickly nods to confirm that he understood that ball of words. So what does that all mean? In that scenario that I created, the co-driver translated “40 L5-/Cr 4+ -> !!!R4/BgJmp oc” into the ball of words that I wrote there. What does “40 L5-/Cr 4+ -> !!!R4/BgJmp oc” mean though? Here is a little chart I made about the codes and words written on a pace note.

L, R: Left corner ahead, right corner ahead.

1,2,3,4,5,6: The number refers to the severity of a corner ahead. The spectrum goes from 1, referring to a slower, first-gear hairpin, to 6, which refers to a flat-out, sixth-gear sweeper.

+, -: Modifiers that adjust the above numbers slightly, giving the driver more detailed information.

: Opens and tightens, two notations that help describe an upcoming corner’s intricacies.

40,50,60 … 200: Numbers from 40 to 200 represent distance (in yards) between instructions and features on the rally stage road.

&: “And” represents a distance shorter than 40 yards.

–>: “Into” represents a very short distance that requires the driver to transition directly from one action to another.

Cr: A “crest” is something you can’t see over or a feature that will likely unsettle the car.

Jmp: A “jump” will make the car come off the ground.

/: When you go “over” something, you need to take action while going over or through a rally stage feature.

OC: A corner is “off-camber.”

Slippy: Slippery section of road.

Grip: Section of road with a lot of grip.

Care: Difficult road ahead.

!: Caution means there’s a higher-than-normal probability there could be a crash.

!!: Double caution means there’s a higher-than-normal probability there could be a crash and that crashing will total your rally car.

!!!: Triple caution means there’s a higher-than-normal probability there could be a crash that could kill you.

So there it is, most of the stuff a co-driver translates and yells to the driver. The co-drivers have to read, translate, and yell all this without making a mistake while the car is drifting and doing jumps with the length of a FOOTBALL FIELD. If they do make a mistake, the driver usually crashes but in the most unfortunate of unfortunate crashes, the drivers and the co-drivers can get injured or they could lose their lives too.