Motorsport: Those scribbled notes hold secret to rallying success

The drivers of the World Rally Cars are the rock stars of the sport and get more publicity than the co-drivers. But without someone sitting in the other seat, the glamour boys could end up at the bottom of a cliff rather than on top of the podium.

Among the co-driver's many jobs during a race, most important is reading the pace notes back to the driver at speed while being thrown about like a ball-bearing in a tin can.

Even the most hardened rally fans would struggle to make any sense of the scribbled notes the co-driver and driver compiled during the two recce drives the teams are allowed before an event.

In an effort to make the dark arts of pace notes understandable, SuperSport has put together a guide to what it all means. Before the race, the driver and co-driver are permitted to travel all the stages twice in a road-going car.

The cars all have GPS tracking devices and must not exceed 80km/h - just to add a bit spice when trying to ascertain just how fast the driver thinks he can go through any given section.

While the driver calls out section information including how tight the corners are, rises and falls in the road, dangers, obstacles, land marks etc, the co-driver is furiously scribbling down these observations in a type of shorthand. While each team's notes may vary a little in their shorthand, in general they have all have the same feel.

For example you might hear a co-driver (in this case Phil Mills, who rides with Petter Solberg) call out from his pace notes: "Start, 30, left over crest into short 4 right plus opens 60, crest and 6 right plus and don't cut short 6 left minus. 60, line into 2 right minus over a bump tightens to hairpin over ditch."

Confused? Join the club. Here it is in layman's terms: "Start moving and drive 30m then keep left over a crest of a hill into a fast fourth-gear right-hand corner.

"Then accelerate for 60m to the next crest, then stay in the middle of the road for a sixth-gear left-hand corner at half throttle. Drive 60m, keep to left hand side of the road for a second-gear right-hand corner, which tightens very badly over a bump. At the same time brake for a hairpin turn over a drainage ditch."

Got it? Good, now have look at the graphic.