BEGINNER’S TIME TRIAL TIPS

It’s best for the team to keep as close as possible to the target average speed at all times.

Hoping to make up time on the straights with discrepancies of more than about 15 seconds puts you in heavy mental arithmetic territory, or, in my case, guesswork territory. Working out longer gaps when you have to juggle with a base of 60 under pressure, are a nightmare.

It’s easy — even experienced navigators say this — when you’ve worked out the gap to get confused about whether you are ahead of the clock or behind, i.e. speed up or slow down. Keeping the difference to just a few seconds makes this much easier.

Download a time/speed/distance calculator to work out checks at convenient intervals through each stage ahead of time.

The keen prefer lots of checks (e.g. every kilometre), some a few (half way or quarter distance), but see caution above. Either way, leave time and space to advise the driver of upcoming hazards.

Working out what’s important and what’s less important is part of the fun of it. I discovered the timesheet, which got thoroughly muddled, didn’t matter at all, as the Rallysafe unit captured everything.

Rallysafe recorders (at least in Targa VCC) show distance covered and time elapsed, not speed or average speed. The mathematicallychallenged will find the elapsed distance 11:54 on screen looks very much like 11:54 elapsed time. Try to remember which is which.

Other gadgets can help. Some use Garmin GPS to show more accurate speed, and potentially average speed. Other specific rally gadgets like the New Zealand-made Monit rally computers show both average and actual speed. The driver just has to keep both numbers at the target speed.

Top tip from Team Limeflower: stick a Post-it with that stage’s target speed on it next to the computer, and keep all three numbers the same.