The awesome power of pacenotes

When you override the instinct to back off - and get away with it - the buzz is amazing. Photo / Supplied

It is just under two weeks until the Rally of Whangarei on the 3rd & 4th July. Last week I announced that Ben Atkinson from Australia will be my codriver for this rally.

I'm really looking forward to working with Ben as he was my teammate last year in the Asia Pacific Rally Championship codriving for Cody Crocker.

Cody and Ben made history last year by winning the Asia Pacific title for the fourth year in a row in the car which we are now campaigning here in NZ.

It will be a bit of a family affair for Ben as his brother Chris will also be competing in Whangarei in the factory supported Proton team. It is the first time since 2004 that Ben and Chris have competed in the same rally.

Before the rally Ben and I will go testing together in the forest. It is really important to get some seat time together before competition to ensure we are both comfortable with each other and practice the timing and delivery of our pace notes. We will also go and practice writing some pace notes to make sure everything will run smoothly come recce.

As I mentioned in my last blog, pace notes are an integral part of top level rallying. Good pace notes are a must for being able to drive fast and maximise our speed through every corner.

Before an event every crew will do a 'recconaissance' pass over the rally stages at road speed in a road car. The driver will dictate to the codriver a description of the road and the codriver will write it down in shorthand.

The best way to write a description of the road is to use a code system that the driver understands. Most drivers using a number system that represents the tightness of a corner, for example 1 - 8, with 1 being a hairpin and an 8 being almost straight.

It is a huge buzz to drive committed on pacenotes as the sensible part of your brain is telling you to lift your foot off the accelerator and hit the brake as you come over a crest fully committed at 150km/hr in fifth gear.

When you override that instinct and get away with it - the buzz is amazing. Rally driving really is like a drug addiction I imagine - the highs you get from dancing on gravel with your car at speeds in excess of 140km/hr is unbeatable. Even the lows can't stop you coming back for more....

At Rally Whangarei 2007 Glenn and I made a rather big mistake with my pacenotes. We were so intent on trying to make the correct pacenote to maximise our speed over a certain crest that I didn't pay enough caution to the corner after it. From that one moment's inattention on recce on the Thursday, we had sealed our fate for the rally on Sunday.

Approaching this crest in excess of 140km/hr I turned slightly right for the corner after it, as we came over the crest Glenn and I both realised that we didn't have much hope of getting around the corner as our note was wrong and we should have braked and turned a lot more for the corner.

We had now run out of road and were scrambling along the edge trying to regain the road with a foot full of accelerator. Unfortunately, we had no hope of fighting the law of momentum and we started an end for end roll over down into the gully at the edge of the road coming to rest a couple of hundred metres away from where we left the road.

The thing that amazed me about this accident was how quick it happened. Driving fully committed on pacenotes we can't doubt what the note says, we have to commit and drive to what the note says.

What this means is that the margin of error is pretty small and if you get it really wrong like we did, you won't have much time, if any, to do anything about it.

I learnt a great deal from that accident and I now put a much greater effort into writing my pacenotes and checking them. Recce really is one of the most important parts of a rally and I now treat it as that.

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- Emma Gilmour