Grand Touring: Everything you need know about Distance, Speed and Time Rallying… and didn’t know What or Who to ask Edited by John Hume Sr. If you like the thought of spirited driving on tarmac through various terrains (towns, villages, open country roads, down fjords) with high speed and precision, then Grand Touring rallying is for you! And just what is Targa Grand Touring Division (DST Rallying) all about? It is about driving very quickly and very accurately! After reading this article you will have a good understanding of the Grand Touring (GT) category of Targa and all of its requirements. As result you will have the knowhow to rally effectively and competitively. Below is a picture of my 2013 MINI GP - It has raced Targa Newfoundland in GT class 4 times finishing 2nd twice and 1st twice. Needless to say, this type of vehicle is ideal for rallying. It is not expensive to buy or own, but great on gas, has more than enough power and handles extremely well. (Got a dime anyone? - I will show you some turns) John Hume and his navigator at work “in the mobile office” Targa Grand Touring Defined The Targa Grand Touring (GT) class is defined as Distance - Speed - Timed rallying. GT is a test of accuracy and teamwork where precision in quick driving is the goal. All vehicles are assigned a base speed for each race stage. The base speed is the exact speed in which you are required to drive the stage. If a stage has a base speed of 105 kph, an average of exactly 105 kph is required. Hence, a very precise style of driving is necessitated. So, the navigator has the key role in the car. The navigator, by way of reading an instructive course book, not only calls the instructions but also monitors the average speed, elapsed time and advises the driver accordingly. The driver then needs to speed up or slow down as required. This necessitates a lot of good and constant communication and team work, since the navigator has much to monitor and relay to the driver. Risk factor A GT competitor’s goal is to maintain a specific yet very quick speed. There are stages where a GT class competitor may be averaging 115 kph. Yet, less than 5% of GT participants fail to complete the week's racing. The GT class provides less risk to both the team and vehicle, hence does not have the extensive safety requirements of the Targa category. How it’s scored Since you are assigned an exact speed to drive and the exact length of the stage is known, the organizers have calculated at exactly what time you should cross the flying finish. Calculated to the exact second, it is a measure of the time when you started the stage to when you finished. A penalty of 1 point per second early or late is assigned if you are off this target time. However, nobody is perfect so there is a margin of error that is allowed in each stage. On day one of the event, this margin is set around 12 seconds decreasing each day down to approximately 2 seconds per stage by the final day. This gives competitors some experience under their belts by Wednesday before timing becomes critical. As well there are four practice stages (Prologues) to do the day before actual racing starts. So time to hone some communication and driving skills beforehand. Example - you have a stage that has a target time of 6 minutes 15 seconds; and you finished the stage in 6 minutes even. On day one, being 12 seconds off of target time you earn a 3 second penalty. However, by day 5, the margin is just 2 seconds you would earn a 13 point penalty. Considering that the top finishers usually have less than 25 seconds in penalties for the entire week, you can see why it is important to maintain precision. Suggested Odometer Equipment and Digital Timers: Any device that automatically provides average speed information, or time ahead of, or behind a target average speed is virtually a necessity in GT rallying. This includes most GPS units, virtually all rally computers, and many standard in-car computers. By providing time ahead/behind or average speed, the navigator's work load is significantly reduced. Although more equipment monitoring is required. Two common rally Odometers are Terratrip and Monit (my favorite) and see images of timers, plus odo and timer configuration: TERRATRIP SAMPLE EQUIPMENT SETUP MONIT TYPICAL TIMER Most cars currently produced have in car DST computers as standard equipment. These display average speed. While not required, a precision odometer is highly recommended if you want to be competitive. Also, you will require two digital timers. One is used to count up for each race, so you can track in your route book where you should be at any time showing on the timer. The second timer is used to count down each race stage. Set it before each stage to the time set for that stage (remember wet and dry times are different So make sure you know if you are racing a wet or dry race!. Use the second timer to verbally count down the last 20 seconds of stage. Don't forget to reset both timers at each stage start. Same with your odometer. You set it to Zero at each stage start. And leave it measuring distance until your reach the next race start. You will need the Odometer's distance reading to do the in between stage transits. If you reset your odometer after a stage - you will get lost in your transit! We use Velcro to affix our rally odometer and timers to the dash right in front of the navigator. Best Practices The route books you will use for the week (one per race day = 6 total) are available online about a week before arriving at the event and hard copies are handed out at Targa registration; including all the instructions, speeds and stage times for the event. You may think, ‘I have detailed instructions, I have the speeds I need to travel and I know exactly how long I have to travel each stage. So I’ll just race it through the stage and slow down at the end!’ Sorry, it’s not that simple. If you drive very fast and intentionally stop to kill time and are seen by any event marshal, penalties will be assigned. Or you may drive too fast and find towards the end of a stage you are at the flying finish too soon, then try to slow down in order to cross the line on time. Generally speaking you will not be able to erase enough time without actually stopping before reaching the flying finish (which if you do will net you penalty points and can be dangerous, as there is someone only 30 seconds behind you). Best practice is to maintain the correct "time" at each "distance interval" through each stage. Try for 3 or 4 seconds early through each leg up to end of day 3, just in case (banking time). To ensure you maintain the correct "time" at each moment through each stage there are ITC’s (Interim Time Controls - yellow signs with ITC on them), placed sporadically throughout each run. Usually hard to spot until you are right at them. You never know when you will encounter one. If you are maintaining a correct "time" window throughout each stage, then you will pass by the ITC at the correct "time". It matters not how fast you are going at an ITC (as long as it is less than 150 kph). Event Marshals know exactly when you should be at any given point in a stage and that includes ITCs. The same penalties (and error margins) apply for ITC’s as for the flying finish. Some stages won’t have any ITC’s, some stages will have one or several ITCs. And these are not marked in the route books (so cruel to be sure). This is why GT is called Time - Speed - Distance- The correct time at all points over a set distance. With a rally Odometer, it is comparatively simple to determine whether you are above or below your assigned average speed. But a better way is to mark in your route books interval times throughout each race stage to keep you on time at each point of each stage. The navigators job is to advise the driver if they’re ahead or behind by referring to the odometer and timer counting up time taken. Or, if the driver is good at on the fly math the navigator reads out time you should be at a distance point and time you are actually at a distance point. It does not matter how fast you are going (just keep it under 150 kph) at any point in a race stage. It only matters what time you are at any given distance point in a race stage. There are available online computer programs that will allow you to do the interim time calculations very easily. Or, Rally Phone Apps are available to download (i.e. ARM app). Or, you can do them manually as per: By applying the formula Distance times 60 divided by Speed equals Time (D x 60/S = T), However, this is a tedious time consuming practice and you cannot do it on the fly. Nobody I know does this anymore. Best to use the program before the event and input times in your route books (Yes, both wet and dry times meaning two sets of numbers per race stage.