The Road Rally Handbook 1 2 Digital Edition – June 9, 2020 The Road Rally Handbook – Digital Edition The Complete Guide to Competing in Time-Speed-Distance Road Rallies Clint Goss Publisher 6 Fieldcrest Road Westport, CT 06880 The Road Rally Handbook 3 The Road Rally Handbook: The Complete Guide to Competing in Time-Speed-Distance Road Rallies ©1993, 2020 by Clinton F. Goss. This publication is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ The print edition of this book was produced in 1993 and printed on Windows-based and Sun Microsystem systems using Ventura Publisher on an HP Laserjet III with PacificData's Postscript cartridges. Most of the text in the book was set using fonts developed by Hermann Zapf. It took 3 years to produce. This digital edition of this book was developed from the original text and images in June 2020 on a Windows system running at 1,000 times the speed, with 500,000 times the main memory, and 1,000,000 times the disk space as the 1993 system on which the First Edition was produced. The fonts are my own open-source Kurinto fonts. It took 3 weeks to produce. Publisher's Cataloging-in-Publication Data Goss, Clinton F. The Road Rally Handbook: The Complete Guide to Competing in Time-Speed-Distance Road Rallies / by Clint Goss p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index 1. Road Rallies – Time, Speed, Distance. I. Title. 2. Sports — motorsport competition. 3. Cars — road rallies. CIP 92-90812 ISBN 0-9632401-0-2 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-90812 All route instruction samples in this book were produced using the RallyMaster Software PackageTM running on IBM-PC compatible computers. Published by: Rally America!, 6 Fieldcrest Road, Westport, CT 06880 (203) 454-1479 [[email protected]] Printed and bound in the United States of America Date of this original print edition: March 1, 1993 Date of this digital edition: June 9, 2020 ＀ v＂ 4 Digital Edition – June 9, 2020 Table of Contents Part 3 – Rally Equipment Click on the page numbers to go directly to that chapter … 8. Equipment Basics .................... 89 9. Clocks ........................................ 97 10. Odometers ........................... 108 Preface ............................................ 7 11. Integrated Boxes ................. 129 About this Book ........................... 10 12. Speedometers ..................... 141 13. Installation ........................... 151 Part 1 – Getting Started 14. Calculators ........................... 178 1. What is a Road Rally? ............... 17 15. Tables .................................... 193 2. Your First Rally .......................... 23 16. The Well-Dressed Car ......... 213 Part 2 – Running Novice Class Part 4 – Rally Navigation 3. Novice Basics ........................... 43 17. More Navigation Basics ...... 229 4. Fundamental Navigation ........ 57 18. Stock Class Navigation ....... 237 5. Calculating Perfect Times ........ 63 19. Precision Course 6. A Basic Strategy ....................... 69 Measurement ........................ 249 7. Beyond Novice ......................... 81 20. Odo Class Navigation ......... 273 21. Computer Class Navigation 285 22. Speedo Class Navigation .... 296 23. Limited-Speedo Navigation 307 The Road Rally Handbook 5 Part 5 – Rally Driving 24. The Well-Driven Car ............. 318 25. Suspension and Handling .. 330 26. Night, Winter, and Endurance Rallies ................. 338 Part 6 – Traps 27. A Well-Laid Trap ................... 345 28. Math Traps ........................... 351 29. Main Road Traps .................. 357 30. Trap Potpourri ...................... 365 31. Epilogue ............................... 381 Part 7 – Reference A. Sources and Suppliers .......... 384 B. Bibliography ........................... 397 6 Digital Edition – June 9, 2020 Preface look was called for. But, most important, Outside of a dog, this book should be there was a large contingent of rallyists who the rallyist's best friend. had done a number of events and were Inside a dog, it's too dark to see anyway. becoming adept at the basics of the sport, but did not know where to go next. Their ― with apologies to Groucho Marx results would plateau and the prospect of This book was begun the day we ran our devising a navigation system and selecting a first Road Rally. Really! competitive class after running Novice for a year was daunting. Because we did not understand the basic term “Transit Zone” on this first event, we So, this book is written not as a how-to- made some spectacular blunders (as told in rally, but primarily as a how-to-do-better in the There We Were story at the start of rallying. We begin with an introduction to Chapter 1). the sport and how to get into your first event. Then, the book follows with a series That evening, after we understood our of chapters on topics that are roughly in the blunders, I scribbled a note to myself: Rally order we became interested in them over the Book – Transit Zones. This note eventually years. Some of the later topics are fairly took residence with the hundred other notes esoteric. It might seem incredible to a I had accumulated on various lifetime novice that anyone could be concerned that projects that I would someday undertake. their tires are heating up at a slower rate On every rally, I would scribble more notes than those of the car which measured the and add them to the pile. course. But, five years later when you're Then, several cultural and socio-economic trying to break out of a four-way tie for first factors conspired against me and forced me place on a National Rally, these things to actually begin the book. First, the suddenly become very important! company for which I was working went This book is suitable for a wide range of belly-up, giving me ample time between rallyists, from beginners looking to get into jobs. Second, although there were many their first event, to the teams interested in excellent books on the topic, most were out getting out of Novice class, and as a of print or outdated enough so that a fresh reference for experienced teams. The Road Rally Handbook 7 Now for a couple of caveats: First of all, I each chapter (earning the title of “Official am a navigator (I drove a rally once, but this Checkers”), or, in some cases, proofreading is the last you will hear of that endeavor!). the entire book: Bob Benson, Barb Ciesla, As such, this book has a Navigator's view of Tom Ciesla, Jack Christensen, John Driver, the sport. Karin Driver, Glenn Folsom, Mary Beth Folsom, Marc Goldfarb, Deb Golen, Ric The second caveat is that this book is out of Golen, Marie Goss (mom), Rich Kamo, Pego date, or at least is bound to be by the time Mack, Steve Miller, Jim Mirrielees, Dave you read it. The sport moves rather quickly, Nolan, Jan Smola, Vera Shanov, Bill both because of creative rallymasters and Shrader, Herb Suessenbach, Victor the advances in available technology. Stankiewicz, W. David Teter, Christopher Finally, much of my rally experience has Yates, and Dennis Yates. dealt with events run in the Northeast US. Jonathan Reduker drew the illustration on Many of the conventions and customs the cover. Jonathan, Bob Benson, and Jack described have a Northeastern flavor, which Christensen assisted me in the art of book may differ in some ways from events put on design, which was done entirely on PC- in other areas. based systems, using Ventura Publisher and A large number of people helped this book Corel Draw under Microsoft Windows 3.1. happen. My thanks go to the following My thanks also for the superb fonts of people for providing advice and information Hermann Zapf and their fine digital on various areas in this book: Roger Barr, rendering by Bitstream and Adobe. Masters John Buffum, Bill Caloccia, Fred Cochran, of the text and cover were printed on an Andy English, Mark Evangelista, Jim Hewlett-Packard Laserjet III with Postscript Friedman, Mike Friedman, Bill Hall, Dave cartridges by Pacific Data Products. Hannum, Dave Head, Stu Helfer, Gene This book is printed on acid free, 50% Henderson, Jerry Hines, Mark Lees, Max recycled paper. It is bound using the Logan, Ian MacLennan, Bob Morseburg, RepKover® lay-flat binding system Matt Murray, Steve Novatne, Benny Pollak, developed by Otabind International. You Ed Rachner, Bob Radford, Bob Ricker, Peter can open this book to any page, run a finger Stevens, Loyal Truesdale, Kerry Voll, down the spine, and the pages of the book Richard Welty, and Steve Zoeller. will lay flat with no damage to the spine. Each of the chapters of this book underwent Finally, in the greatest tradition of book technical proofing by people who are authors, I wish to thank my wife, Vera, for “specialists” in that area. In addition to encouraging this effort and driving me to providing extensive information, these write this book. people spent a tremendous amount of time scrutinizing and re-scrutinizing the details of ― Clint Goss, March 1993 8 Digital Edition – June 9, 2020 Preface to the Digital Edition As noted in the colophon, this edition was After printing 4,600 copies of the book over produced in 1/50th the time of the 1993 the last 27 years, we decided to go digital edition, on a machine with 1,000 times the and release the book under a permissive speed, 500,000 times the memory, and open-source license. 1,000,000 the disk space. Of course, the text Under the open-source license (CC-BY-NC still describes 1993 rally technology … your 4.0 International), you are free to: share mileage may vary! (copy and redistribute the material in any ― Clint Goss, January 2020 medium or format) and also adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) as long as you do not use the material for commercial purposes and attribute my work – give appropriate credit in any reasonable manner (but not in any way that suggests the I endorse you or your use), provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.