173 replies to this topic

[Cooperman]

Great posts guys. Well written and very informative.

 
I'm very much a novice at all this, so trying my best to share any knowledge i've gained (not alot really!)....whereas Cooperman is certainly someone with a wealth of information stored away up there in his grey cells....and anyone who wants to rally a mini needs to listen to him.  Plus he's a really nice guy with a great sense of humour!  His and whizzo's standup (i mean informative talk about rallying!) routine is very funny!!!

You are making me blush, Dave!
But, I'll help anyone who wants to get into rallying as much as I can. It's simply a fantastic sport.

[minisi35]

 

The most important thing in reading the road is to use a specific format, as I said above. So it's always 'DISTANCE, FEATURE, INSTRUCTION', in that order - always in that order.
I've heard navigators say "Take the next turning on the right". So I then ask "How far". AS a driver it is necessary to know whether to drive quickly and carry speed through the bends or to be ready to brake and turn at a junction. Accuracy in road reading is absolutely vital and the distance to the next feature is just so important as it determines how the driver sets the car up on the road.
Also, when checking times or plotting whilst on the move the driver must know that he is 'on his own' and that no reading of the bends will be done. But, when plotting, don't lose track of where you are on the map.
And a crew must practice and practice and practice road reading and driving to the navigator's instructions.

 

 

Just to add to peters description, there is alot that can be seen on a map that can be given to the driver as a "feature" to look out for, such as foot paths, buildings, woods etc

ive marked just a few to show you

Edited by minisi35, 29 April 2013 - 04:23 PM.

[rally1380]

Another good one i always look out for as a driver are footpath signs....that way as i call them (or a river, or any other feature) the navigator can find exactly where we are on the map. It is amazing how detailed OS maps are...the best in the world for a reason!

[Cooperman]

I once heard someone say that for success in rallying you need a driver with the ability to 'press on safely, a navigator able to navigate totally accurately and a reliable and capable car.

That is so very true.

However, I think there also needs to be a lot of empathy between driver & navigator. I once had a driver say that he felt able to drive faster when navigated by me as we got on so well both inside & outside the car so had total confidence (not misplaced I hoped!). He said that he could even tell whether he was driving fast enough by my tone of voice which was, apparently, calm when he was 'on the pace' and really going for it, but more urgent if he was going too slowly or lacking in commitment on a given section. That, I guess, is the measure of a good crew working together. We used to analyse our performance after every big event to see how we could have improved, then tried to put that into practice on the next event and/or go out in the lanes to practice it.

We also used to swap seats whilst practising so that each could see what the other had to do. I realised two things with one of my drivers: 1. The Datsun 240Z with over 240 bhp was a real handful in the lanes in the wet and, 2. My driver was absolutely hopeless at any sort of map reading. But it gave us a high regard for each other's skills and when we won we were genuinely able to congratulate each other.

[keefr22]

1. The Datsun 240Z with over 240 bhp was a real handful in the lanes in the wet..

I absolutely loved seeing you & Mr. Videan in the Z-car! It had so much presence & was so different from all the Escorts (but I loved those too, & went through more than a dozen of them before it dawned on me what a rubbish driver I was!!)

Keith

[Cooperman]

Keith, we had so much fun in the 'Big Z' as we always called it. It was an extrovert car which suited our joint personalities, had stacks of grunt with 240 bhp or thereabouts (in the 'works' cars, the car we called 'The Yellow Nail' in which I won the MN Championship had about 160 bhp) and was simply fantastic. When we beat those Escorts it used to really upset them as the Big Z was always considered unsuitable for the narrow lanes.
Kevin always trusted me implicitly. If I said a crest was 'FLAT', that is how he took it, so I had to get it right or we would have crashed big-time.
Those 200+ mile night MN Championship rallies really were something else. To go flat out all night on a route pre-plotted onto OS maps and to not make any navigational error or driving error at all was what you had to do to finish in the first 5 overall. How I wish we could go back & do it all again.
For a good read get Peter Robinson's book 'Memory Lanes re-Visited'. It gives an idea of what it was like and the atmosphere of the events. By the way, I wrote the 'Foreword' to that book.

Edited by Cooperman, 01 May 2013 - 08:29 PM.

[Cooperman]

Here are Kevin & me with the 'Big-Z' and assorted friends and service crew at the start of the 1973 Swansea Motor Club 'Rally of the Vales' MN Championship event which we won:
%5BIMG%5Dhttp://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa449/Cooper0001/181652_183381101700480_100000857742751_382435_2863891_n-1_zps3bca7d71.jpg

[keefr22]

"For a good read get Peter Robinson's book 'Memory Lanes re-Visited'. It gives an idea of what it was like and the atmosphere of the events. By the way, I wrote the 'Foreword' to that book."

I've got both that & the original edition! (& also Mick Briant's recent tome, though I realise he maybe wasn't everyone's favourite person at the time, it's a lovely book) I did a couple or three MN events, both as a driver & navigator, with no success whatsoever, but I wouldn't have missed the experience for anything! I also marshalled on quite a few, & to see you & the other top crews in action, & to be part of the action in that way too, was a real privilege! From my marshalling, one thing that I did notice - & which I feel comes through in your posts - was the precision of the top crews. You'd come screaming up to our control, flat until the last possible moment, the driver would hit the anchors & you'd stop right next to me - I wouldn't need to move 99% of the time, something that wasn't the case for most of the semi experts & novices! That's always stuck in my memory for some reason! Great days...!!

Edited by keefr22, 01 May 2013 - 09:36 PM.

[keefr22]

Here are Kevin & me with the 'Big-Z' and assorted friends and service crew at the start of the 1973 Swansea Motor Club 'Rally of the Vales' MN Championship event which we won:
%5BIMG%5Dhttp://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa449/Cooper0001/181652_183381101700480_100000857742751_382435_2863891_n-1_zps3bca7d71.jpg

I was probably there spectating!! Too young to drive, I didn't pass my test till '74.

[Cooperman]

I could tell lots of stories about what Kevin & I got up to both inside the car and on nights out together in various night clubs and other places. Some could not be put into print but we sure had a lot of fun together.
Wonderful days with a lot of great people.
Mick Briant's book is good too and I have a copy which I'm going to give to my son.
I won my first rally in a Mini in 1961 with my great buddy Bill Rogers and from then on I always wanted to be competitive. The 850 Mini sure taught you how to drive as you couldn't afford to lift off anywhere and it had b****r-all in the way of brakes (single leading shoe). We tried to make up for that when up against more powerful cars like the Sunbeam Rapier, Ford Zephyr, Anglia 1200, Cooper 997, Volvo 122S, etc., by being ultra accurate with both navigation and driving. You had to carry the speed and energy through every corner. I remember how we caught a TR4 in the very twisty lanes on a cold & wet night in the 850 and he didn't realise it was just a little Mini so he moved over and let us past. At the finish he congratulated Bill on his driving ability, which was a very fair thing to do. At 73 years old Bill is still very quick and has a rally Cooper 'S' 1071 at his home in California.

[keefr22]

Ever thought about writing a book yourself Peter? I'd be first in the queue to buy it - I love the stories from those days!

I remember passing a TR4 on one event - but only because he wrong slotted! I then managed to go off into a field entrance about a mile down the road & got bogged down in about 2 foot of wet mud & cow doings! The TR came along & very sportingly tied a tow rope on & pulled us out! You wouldn't get that in the WRC...!! I saw him too at the end & thanked him for pulling us out, and he said his nav was having a mare & they'd gone wrong so often they were OTL so were just pootling around for the fun of it when they came across our marooned Mexico!

[Cooperman]

We came blasting up a narrow yellow road and there was a 'right-left' kink with a muddy white road straight on. Our great rival Dai Roderick had gone up the muddy white and was reversing out, but we nipped past in out Big-Z and so he was behind us. The road went very fast downhill almost straight for about 1/2 a mile to a bad square left around a white barn with, unfenced, a very smelly farm pond on the outside. I slowed Kevin, then slowed him some more and we easily got round the square left. Nor so Dai who went straight into the *******. It was up to halfway between sill and window level and his navigator refused to get out - very wise. The farmer agreed to pull him out, but said that Dai would have to tie the tow chain on! Kevin thought it was hilarious. How the smell was ever got out of the Escort RS1600 is beyond me. Not a job I would have fancied.

[The Jazz Man24]

Great work, this is a really interesting read. This may be a completely ridiculous question but, is there any space in road rallying for turbo mini's?

[rally1380]

Great work, this is a really interesting read. This may be a completely ridiculous question but, is there any space in road rallying for turbo mini's?

 

Normally i would say definately not. Forced induction isn't currently allowed.

 

But i think regs might be changing to allow small bore turbo'd cars.....a bit like Skoda's Fabia as an example.

 

So, currently no, but keep yer eyes open for revisions to the MSA bluebook

[keefr22]

Great work, this is a really interesting read. This may be a completely ridiculous question but, is there any space in road rallying for turbo mini's?

 
Normally i would say definately not. Forced induction isn't currently allowed.
 
But i think regs might be changing to allow small bore turbo'd cars.....a bit like Skoda's Fabia as an example.
 
So, currently no, but keep yer eyes open for revisions to the MSA bluebook

I could be completely wrong (happens often!)but I thought that proposed rule change was for factory produced turbo cars?