Final countdown for Rally NZ

Teams face far more prep and recce work for the international than for local events. Photo / Geoff Ridder

The final countdown is on for Rally NZ and I am really excited about this year's event - being held in Auckland for the first time in many years.

The stages themselves will be very similar to those that we have competed on in the past, but the addition of stages like the Auckland Domain and Hampton Downs should hopefully make it a lot more accessible for the general public to come along and see what rallying is all about.

Rally NZ is a much bigger commitment for us than our usual NZ events. Instead of one pass of reconnaissance the day before the rally to make notes of the stages, we will do two passes of the stages over two days - Tuesday & Wednesday. This is almost the most important part of the event. Making good pacenotes is crucial to being able to go fast.

Many people think that the co-driver makes the pacenotes but in fact it is the driver who creates the notes. On the first pass of the stage at slow road speed the driver will dictate to the co-driver a description of the road.

The co-driver will take this down in short hand so that on the second pass they can call the description back to the driver and they can make changes or adjustments as needed.

In addition to this we will also do a third check of the notes from an in car camera that we take along on 'recce'. It is so important to have good accurate pacenotes as any small error can turn into a huge error at speed!

Along with more days of recce we also have bigger days of competition. We have three days of driving with very early starts and very late finishes - rallying certainly isn't a sport for people scared of getting out of bed early. Although....the thought of racing - even watching racing - over some of the best stages in the world should be enough to get anyone out of bed.

So, if you are in the Auckland area on Friday night come along to the Auckland Domain to cheer us on. Entry is free and you will never get a better opportunity to see the world's best rally cars and drivers in action.

I will be doing daily updates to my Facebook page and Twitter account so don't forget to sign up if you're keen to keep up with all the news this week.

- Emma Gilmour www.emmagilmour.com