Rally - Why a Navigator?

R

Redoak

Active Member
Joined
May 28, 2005
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Montreal, Qc, Canada
Hey guys,

I've tried to find information on this, but its pretty damn hard.

Why is there a navigator in the Rally events (Wrc stuff)?

Anyone's got a clear answer to that?

thx for the help
 
Are you kidding? Rally tracks have many, many more corners than closed circuits. Nature is far more unpredictable and just comes at you so fast that, as you're taking a corner, you need to be informed and thinking about the next one.

I always figured that was pretty obvious.
 
Please don't give me the "are you kidding" speech dude, i'm not all knowing, and neither are you. Can you tell me why helicopter pilots are seated to the right while any other aircraft pilots are always seated to the left? (and no its not because it was perhaps invented in britain or japan or whatever)... so go google that and i'll reply that "are you kidding..." crap.

Aside from the cock fights, i asked because there must be a good answer to it rather then "because there are many corners...". The challenge could have very well be for drivers to "adapt" to the track/challenge rather then being given all the answers in advance, its just a matter of perspective.

What i want to know for example is, how it got started, why it was made this way, who though about it first...

Thanks for the help
 
^ that attitude has never ever reaped any good results on FG :) Be nice to those who offer help, else you might not be offered it anymore.
 
What attitude? giving a bold and subjective answer or asking for a more rational one and correcting a poor reply?

Just to be clear and to settle this, i know exactly how this forum works and for that exact reason, i'm rather surprised at the poor answer since i know this place to be a lot more mature and informed.

Thanks for the clarification tho.

Oh a side note, while googling for this information, i found this, which is pretty cool.

http://www.comp.utas.edu.au/projects-sby/navigate/

and this as well
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6101798.stm
 
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Well, I think what epp_b was trying to get across is that a rally track is much more complicated than a racetrack. On a racetrack, you have fairly few corners you repeat during testing until you know how to take them. In rallying (such as WRC), you have an unknown course you usually drive once, which also changes daily (in regards to the driven speeds, a little dust and a little more dust on the road matters big time). Therefor, rally drivers have their co-drivers and check the course prior to the "race". You can understand this sport like a team sport, where you're only good when the team works. The best driver can't be quick without the co-driver telling him what to do, while the best co-driver with the perfect bible (that's what the script is called) can't help a bad driver.

Of course, you could say every driver has to do the course on his own. In that case however, I predict that only very few will reach the finish line at all, which kind of misses the point.

Regards
the Interceptor
 
Thanks Interceptor. That's what i gathered as well from tv overviews and videogames. But i'm still wondering "how it came to be" that there is a navigator.

I had a friend come up and say "its to balance the car when jumping" which is completely ridiculous an answer, but i'm still looking for the original answer.

Thanks for your input!
 
Redoak said:
Thanks Interceptor. That's what i gathered as well from tv overviews and videogames. But i'm still wondering "how it came to be" that there is a navigator.
Click to expand...

short answer as to how they came to be was that having a navigator to tell you where to go over the course of a 700+ mile rally from Paris to Madrid saved you alot more time then stopping to check the map yourself or getting lost. You have to remember that rallying today is much different than rallying when it first started. It used to be much closer to the Gumball style of cross-country(s) race than what we have currently the Wikipedia article gives a good history of the sport and if you are interested is definitly worth the read.
 
Ultimately, it seems the "reason" for the navigator directly came from the 1900s then, when they were very useful for long stretches of navigation, motivation, and i suspect, secondary drivers...(?!). So technically, there are no real reason for Navigators "today", but their job was kept and brought up to date. Cool stuff.

Now that's pretty interesting.

Thanks for sharing Finn
 
I have a rally question as well, why do they drift around corners? isn't that just scrubbing off speed?
 
Lighten up Redoak, I was just saying "Are you kidding" because I figured it was pretty obvious.

I have a rally question as well, why do they drift around corners? isn't that just scrubbing off speed?
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Now that's a good one. I'm theorizing here, but I think it's because rally courses are typically very "ungrippy". If you were to try to hit the apex as if you're in a touring car on tarmac, you'd have to slow down quite a bit to get the right line. By drifting, they can maintain their speed, but ween their way into the corner in the right line.

In theory. I think ;)
 
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@lambos r4ever
not really, most rally cars (all WRC cars) are turbocharged, so when they drift through corners they can leave their foot on the throtle to maintain high revs - keeping the boost up. also, on loose surfaces you have horrible front-end grip, so you correct the massive understeer by oversteering, either using left foot brake, lift off, powerslide or handbrake oversteer, depending on the type of the corner, so instead of scrubbing off speed you actually are faster. the only rare occasions when they are not drifting is when they are using the camber of the road to hook the inside tires so they can pass faster.
 
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Redoak said:
Ultimately, it seems the "reason" for the navigator directly came from the 1900s then, when they were very useful for long stretches of navigation, motivation, and i suspect, secondary drivers...(?!). So technically, there are no real reason for Navigators "today", but their job was kept and brought up to date. Cool stuff.

Now that's pretty interesting.

Thanks for sharing Finn
Click to expand...

I don't think that their jobs are useless now compared to before. I remember reading somewhere that a driver in the WRC said he wouldn't last more than a few corners without a navigator telling him what's coming up. I would say that how well one performs on complex rally courses is down to the navigator as much as it is to the driver.
 
Redoak said:
So technically, there are no real reason for Navigators "today", but their job was kept and brought up to date. Cool stuff.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say there isn't a real reason for them currently. I think it was more that their purpose evolved as the special stages got shorter and the cars got faster.
 
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WiljushkA said:
@lambos r4ever
not really, most rally cars (all WRC cars) are turbocharged, so when they drift through corners they can leave their foot on the throtle to maintain high revs - keeping the boost up. also, on loose surfaces you have horrible front-end grip, so you correct the massive understeer by oversteering, either using left foot brake, lift off, powerslide or handbrake oversteer, depending on the type of the corner, so instead of scrubbing off speed you actually are faster. the only rare occasions when they are not drifting is when they are using the camber of the road to hook the inside tires so they can pass faster.
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Ah! now I get it. Nice first post.
 
@bartboy9891
thats true, for example if you have a blind fast corner and just after that a tight hairpin, you would be dead without a navigator, you would never have a chance to brake enough to make the corner by the time you saw it
on racetracks you always know all the corners and racing lines by heart, but that is never a situation with rally stages, so you have a navigator to help you create a picture in your mind of whats coming up.

@lambos
glad to be of help :)
 
^^^That was true in the 80's, not anymore. Anti-lag means instant response and current WRC cars have massive grip at both ends.

Lambos4ever, you are right.....it is scrubbing off speed and thats why the modern WRC car no long drifts around corners so much. Watch Sebastien Loeb's incar and you will see why he is the fastest modern rally driver, rarely oversteering. Contrast that with Mikko Hirvonen who is more "traditional", flicking the car into the corner and sliding more........now which one has won 3 straight world titles??

Walter Rohrl always had a more understeer based style as well.....and he was the fastest rally driver ever.

As for navigators....I think you are reading into it too much. Rallies used to be very long, therefore the need for navigation. While that need has gone (at least during competition, road sections are a different matter) simply put you are faster with a co-driver.

The time difference between driving on sight and using notes would be massive.
 
@Necxo
loeb's car looks quite in line from inside, but from outside you can see he still uses oversteer (i was just watching him drifting heavily on tarmac, even where drifting is less apparent), also anti-lag isnt almigthy and you still benefit from left foot braking.

and there is no "more drift/less drift" driving, you drift as much as you need to make the corner. there is less apparent oversteer today because there is more grip than before, but there still is oversteer. and yes, drifting can be scrubbing off speed, and they use it to that extent when they are overspeeding into the corner.

that argument about loeb being fastest because of no-drift stule is invalid, because every wrc driver is a professional and if they saw that his style is faster it would be their obligation to change their styles accordingly in order to make their cars as fast as possible. and there are a lot more parameters to success in rallying than something that simple...you could also say that because there is no drift in lower echelons of rallying, that they are faster and better drivers, but we all know that they are not...
 
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Lambos r4ever said:
I have a rally question as well, why do they drift around corners? isn't that just scrubbing off speed?
Click to expand...

It gives them time to judge the corner. And since you never get 100% grip on gravel/snow/ice/dirt, its far easier to drift and control the car then going for the perfect racing line. Drifting & Scandinavian flick was invented by the Rally drivers after all, they do it so they dont understeer off the cliff or into a tree. Oversteer can be controlled, understeer is just disaster when pushing the car to the limit.

Most rally drivers deliberately drift the car so they can judge the corner better, there are simply too many variables to change the track's condition, and when they are unsure about the corner, they initiate the drift first, then decide whether go flat out or hold back for certain corners.

At least thats how BestMotoring described why rally drivers drifts cars(Interview with Tommi M?kinen), im merely stating what they said.



Coming back to the co-driver question, its pretty obvious why they need a co-driver. As i said earlier on, track conditions is very unpredictable and way too long for the driver to remember all the corners, therefore a co-driver is needed to keep the driver's job simple, flat out driving. Also when the car breaks down, having a co-driver is a great help, you cant possibily repair everything on your own. There are many other things that co-drivers need to do, for instance, Petter Solberg's steering wheel came loose once while racing, and Phil, the co-driver, had to screw it back on while Petter is going flat out through the corners. There are many other scenarios like this, but i wont list them all, at the end of the day, co-drivers are suppose to make rally driver's job as simple as possible, concentrating on what they do best, without getting too distracted by unforeseen problems.

Hope that answer will help.
 
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Here's an idea. Give them a GPS with the talking female voice.

Turn Left 100m. Turn Right 200m.
 
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