Talotekniikka 10 SM-ralli 16th-17th of September

The final round of the Finnish rally championship in 2011. This time co-driving for Andreas Amberg who also belongs to the rally training program. Friday the 16th of September and heading to Kerava for the recce. Easy trip this time since it's a 30 minute drive from home. The recce was a relatively short one, because almost all the stages were run twice and so you only had to do "half" of the pace notes compared to normal. After the recce we stayed at a hotel near Kerava. even though the rally is close to home it's good to take some time of from the normal everyday routines and concentrate on the rally. As a co-driver I spent most of the evening cleaning up the pace notes before having dinner and a good night sleep.

Saturday and the normal routines at the rally head quarters. Checking that everything is OK with the car, rigging up in-car camera, camel bags, putting on the racing overalls, checking official time from HQ etc. Then off to the stages. The first stage was familiar from the previous years. A fast stage on a wide gravel road, but probably a bit slippery since it had been raining for several days. Our aim was to start at maximum attack, but the conditions didn't make it easy for us. The road was very slippery and we were fighting for grip. Then on a fast left/right combination we lost the rear and spun the car when travelling around 120 km/h. Unfortunately the rear of the car hit the side of the road during the spin even though we were traveling quite slowly already. That caused us to roll on the road. Not significant damage to the car except we lost the exhaust which of course meant we didn't have all the power from the engine.

Photograph by Valokuu.com

We did drive through the stage, but decided to retire because we were missing the exhaust and had lost too much time during the stage to fight for a podium finish. Sometimes these things happen in the rallies when you are pushing, but we are not planning to make a habit of it. After our retirement we left the car for our mechanics and went to see other guys on special stage 5. Lots of people in the same corner watching and even some of my friends. I forgot that I had recommended the corner when they had asked for a good viewing spot. My next rally as a co-driver will be in October again with my brother in a BMW M3 in it's maiden rally. Before that some volunteer work as a marshal in one rally to help other crews to enjoy their day driving/co-driving.

As a spectator in Heinola F-Cup 10th of September 2011

The F-Cup is Finland's most popular rally series. Usually F-Cup rallies have between 170 and 220 cars participating. No recce allowed so the crews drive without pace notes. Of course it helps if you have a good road memory since many of the stages have been driven during the previous year in F-Cup or in some other rallies. The rally in Heinola was the last for this season in F-Cup and Jere Rekola won it by a mere 1,5 seconds with his MB 190. A worthy winner since Jere has been close to winning the championship several times.

There are still several mk2 escorts used in F-Cup. The escorts usually have been through lots of modifications in all areas and engines with a power output of between 170-230bhp.

That was one day spend in watching rallying and waiting for the next to get back to the action myself.

Training weekend in Myrskylä and Huittinen

In the rally training we get to spend 6 weekends in different parts of Finland driving, co-driving and getting feedback from the coaches. During the 4th and 5th of September I had one of these weekends with the other drivers and co-drivers in the program. We started the weekend in Myrskylä in something we in Finland call a club race. Everyone in the training program gathered to Myrskylä at 8am on Saturday morning. Only 40 cars are allowed to participate and there was one stage which was 4 kilometers long. So a very suitable event for testing and training. The atmosphere was very relaxed even though the weather greeted us with some occasional showers. I spent the weekend co-driving for Andreas Amberg with whom I´ll participate in the last Finnish championship rally (Kerava SM-ralli) on the 16th of September. Personally I think Honda Civic is a nice car to use in rallying. I prefer rally cars to make some noise. Hondas are well known for rev happy engines and a type-r with 230hp and a rally exhaust really does make some enjoyable "screaming" when on attack mode.

Saturday afternoon we moved to a hotel in Forssa from where we had one hour drive to Sunday's test stage at Huittinen. On Saturday evening we got some feedback from the coaches, went through Sunday's program and relaxed the Finnish way by going to a sauna.

Sunday morning started the usual way in our training weekends. Morning run at 6am! Rally drivers are after all athletes and a bit of jogging in the morning helps to wake up before you go to breakfast. Personally I don't mind the early wake up since my dogs wake me up at 5.50am every morning anyway. Sunday was a better day what comes to the weather so one didn't have escape the rain showers anymore. And definitely much better than the -30 Celsius temperatures we had in training during January. Nothing special during the day. People in the training team know each other well already so just the usual stuff. Focusing on your performance, checking other people's times, going over in-car footage, speculating this and that related to rallying.

The youngster in our group V-P Karttunen received his driving license only a couple of days earlier and was warming up his wrists before his first ever rally on the next weekend. Since everyone in Finland drives their first rallies without any recce allowed (so called dark rallies) the rest of the training team seems to be going to the rally as spectators to see rally cars and check how V-P performs with his Renault Clio. If your not practicing or driving yourself then the natural way to spend a free weekend is to go and watch others drive. My girlfriend loves the logic behind this way of thinking...

00 Safety car

August 27th 2011. First time for me to get to be in a 00 crew. First time in any of the zeros. I have to admit that I really liked the experience. I got an enjoyable day in a rally car without the usual nervous waiting to get to the first stage. With the 00 car you can drive good rally speed in some places and avoid taking any risks. Of course primary mission of the safety car is to check that the stages a safe for spectators and competitors. Being a safety car is a task where the organizer regards your crew as one who can be trusted to do this with certain amount of experience from rallying.The day started with a breakfast with the driver in Imatra's Valtionhotelli. A beautiful old place next to a deep ravine. From there me and the driver Juha Huttunen headed collecting the route maps and time schedules for safety car crews.

Before the stages we participated in a meeting for the safety cars. There it was explained for everybody what is expected from them and what kind of things to keep an eye on. The briefing was very useful for a first timer like me. The start of the rally was in the middle of the town on a walking street. The nice location and beautiful weather enabled people to have a close look at the rally cars and ask questions from the crews queuing for the start. Everybody I talked to liked the location which enabled normal people to learn more about rally sport.

From the centre of Imatra we headed towards the first stage which was a narrow, but fast road. After the stage I had to unlearn something compared to a normal rally. One mustn't follow the time card, but the schedule given to the safety cars. I was planning on going too early to the time control in the beginning of the second stage. The second stage was a really fast stage and there we even got to entertain the crowds a bit. The day was quite hot so the brakes on our fwd Opel Kadett started to overheat which caused us to navigate through one corner unusually sideways. Third stage was also quite fast stage. Nothing out of normal except  one jump where there was a bunch of spectators with a sign "more throttle!". I found that quite funny. Spectators don't usually bother doing something like that in Finland.

Since the rally was only three stages long our day ended early. After our duties as safety cars the organizer wanted feed back from all the safety car crews if there was anything they could improve the following years. We couldn't really find anything to complain and the weather had been nice and warm so all in all a good day. my first time in a zero car, but hopefully not the last.

Neste Oil Rally Finland 2011

No I wasn't participating. Only watching. Of course I would have liked to participate, but maybe that day will come. However I had a interesting few days watching cars etc.

My rally trip started already one day before the stages on Wednesday. University of Jyväskylä held a seminar Promoting Driver Performance. Topics included Risto Mannisenmäki (Tommi Mäkinen's ex co-driver) talking about AKK Driving Academy - Rally coaching in Finland, Robert Reid (Richard Burns' ex co-driver) talking about Comprehensive Motorsport Coaching - Limitations of a top driver. Other topics ranged from dividing attention between driving and secondary actions to topics like emotional attributes of Finnish motorsport athletes and how to train psychological skills. All in all I enjoyed the seminar a lot since it gave a some different angles to rallying that you don't normally come across when talking about rallying with other enthusiasts. At least in Finland you don't normally start a conversation with another rally driver/co-driver by asking that has he/she been doing any mental exercises during the rally weekend.

Spectating the stages started on Thursday. There were only three stages scheduled for Thursday evening and we chose to go to the second one Laukaa. The Finnish police were out on the roads on force like normal to show everybody that they are there and despite traffic jams everybody should keep driving by the book. In Laukaa we didn't have too good spectating position since we chose to go to a field where there were a couple of hundred other people also. You could see the cars for a long time, but not a place where anything interesting would happen. Really positive surprise was the excellent pace of Jari Ketomaa with the WRC Ford. Everybody expected him to be quick, but we was driving fastest times during Thursday before having to slow down so that he wouldn't have to be first on the road on Friday. Sad news for Finns was that Mikko Hirvonen hit a tree on Thursday and even though he didn't retire the fight for victory ended then and there. On Thursday we watched almost all the cars, before driving to Mikkeli to my friend's place for the night.

On Friday we drove from Mikkeli to Lahti area. We decided to go to special stage 6/9 Hyväneula since we got a tip from one Finnish rally driver that there is one right hand corner after a crest which has had "off roading" whenever the road has been used as a special stage. The corner turned out to be a good spectating position. There was a hill on the outside corner we people could position easily so that everyone can see. The first cars drove nicely through the bend like expected. After that there began to be a lot of loose gravel outside the optimal driving line. PG Anderson had a close call with Tommi Mäkinen Racing's Subaru when he missed the line a bit and had to floor the throttle  and throw the car sideways on the loose gravel to get through the bend. Same thing happened also to Prokop with his S2000 Ford. The struts were really deep for cars coming later and the bend started to loose it's interest. We chose to move to special stage Koukunmaa. Later I saw from youtube that Latvala had a big moment in the bend because the struts had thrown him of the line and on privateer WC Mini also went off. Aftermath you can say that maybe we shouldn't have moved to another stage after all.

In Koukunmaa we had a really quiet spectating place after some field on a right hand corner. No action to be expected since there wasn't anything surprising in the corner. Just your average right hand corner that narrowed a little bit. The most interesting part on Friday was to listen to the rally radio and follow special stage results from wrc.com. Ketomaa unfortunately went off so that ended his big surprise. Matti Rantanen also went off with his Mini WRC. I was a bit surprised about that since he has had good results in Finland and I haven't qualified him as the type of driver who crashes a lot. Luckily the driver and co-driver were OK since he went off in a high speed corner. On the positive side Mikko Pajunen showed spectacular pace with a Renaul Clio R3 against the Mitsubishi Evos and Subaru Imprezas in the PWRC class. He was running second in class after Friday with a n/a engined 2wd car. One class below Esapekka Lappi (C2 R2) and Jukka Korhonen (Fiesta R2) had a great battle against each other which Lappi finally won on Saturday. Both also showed their pace against the WRC Academy's Fiesta R2 drivers by leaving them trailing way behind.

Not showing 100% commitment we ended our rally trip already on Friday since we didn't want to drive back north to Jyväskylä for Saturdays stages and then back south to Helsinki after the rally. I followed the Saturday's stages from the internet. Loeb deserved his victory this year, but let's hope there will be a Finn setting the pace next year.

Trusted co-drivers

In rallying the relationship between a driver and a co-driver is quite unique in motorsports. Both have to trust each to get a maximum result from the rally. In many cases the crews race together for several years. In my opinion that's because it takes time to build trust and to learn each others habits. Of course when you get along well in the car why would you change the guy sitting next to you.

Even though co-drivers are the less known compared to the driver there are well known co-drivers who appear again and again in the cars next to the drivers who want to really be competitive in their class. At some level the good drivers expect the co-drivers to be more or less professionals with the tasks related to co-driving and since many crews stay together for years it's sometimes hard to find good co-drivers without a seat. Also other way around the experienced co-drivers have seen enough different drivers to be somewhat selective when it comes to the drivers they are willing to sit next to.

I'll go through some aspects of getting better as a co-driver. Those might affect why the drivers have chosen the particular co-driver and not some bloke who thinks it would be cool to sit in an expensive rally car. Some of the things might seem a bit far fetched, but feel free to ignore them, if you think I've lost my marbles...

Routine. A dangerous word. In the beginning easier said than done. Of course you need a ride first before you can develop a routine in co-driving. When everything isn't new all the time you can fine tune the things you do during recce and special stages. What I meant routine being a dangerous word is that you should always analyze what you are doing and how you do it. It's good to make a mental check from time to time that is there room for improvement. I personally also like to ask from others their opinions. You might not agree with them, but sometimes you pick up things you might never had come across on your own.

Practice. I know. It's so expensive to train with a rally car and get roads for testing. That's not what I meant, but it's great if money and roads aren't a problem for you. Practicing also helps to develop a routine outside rallies. So how can you practice co-driving outside the rally car? For a starters you and your driver can get into a normal road car, find a suitable piece of road that would work as a special stage and start making pace notes. Basically nothing different compared to a recce during the rally and when you make a habit of pace note training it's a lot easier to do the actual recce.

Studying. Applies to all different aspects of rallying. One can learn a lot by sitting by your computer and for example watching incar footage from other competitors and seeing how they drive, what kind of pace notes they use. I'm not a native English speaker so I read car magazines to learn technical vocabulary. Taking a tyre iron into your hand and asking a mechanic to show how to change a tyre. Whatever you think might improve your skills and make you more useful for the team. One thing I've learned is that people like to discuss about subjects close to their hearts. If you want to learn something just find someone who is an enthusiastic and start asking "stupid" questions. If the person isn't willing to share their knowledge just find the next person. People in rallying are usually social and generally nice guys so getting general info about something isn't usually a problem.

Fitness. To some of us in rallying the other passions in life aren't long distance running or iron man competitions. Taking care of yourself  doesn't have to go that far since even simple things help. When you eat choose the healthier option and go for a run a couple of times a week. I have never been passionate for training, but when you start doing it it easily becomes a habit. Nowadays I go for the gym twice a week and go running 2-3 times a week. I don't even regard it as a chore anymore since your body seems to yearn for more. The sport has changed a lot during the last 20 years and do you really see many overweight co-drivers next to the top cars smoking a cigarette and eating a burger. Personally I like to think that if I'm in good physical condition my chances of getting tired later in the day are smaller and I'm more likely to keep a good concentration on the stages.

Social skills. Like it or not, but the co-drivers get to interact a lot with mechanics, organizers, sponsors etc. The driver should be able to concentrate on the driving part as much as possible so the co-driver should be able to tackle other tasks as much as possible. Generally it would help if other people regard you as a stand up person who takes care of his/her end as promised so that they can concentrate on things that are left for them. People have to be able to trust the co-driver.

Co-drivers. Those guys filling the extra seat next to the driver...

So what are those co-driver guys doing? Aren't they just filling the vacant seat just because the regulations in rallying say there has to be two people in the car? Well the regulations do say there has to be two people in the car, but there is more than that.

Thinking from a perspective that you race as a hobby. Even as a hobby the co-driver usually is responsible for the following tasks:

Before the rally:
- Plan with the driver/team which rallies to participate
- Enter the team to the rally, pay the entering fee to the organizers
- Read the rally rules carefully in case of some special features unique to the rally, inform others in the team
- Plan the schedule for the event, who goes where and when
- Calculate fuel consumption for the rally car
- Reserve accommodation for the team. Make sure there is enough parking space for the truck/trailer. 
-Check that you have your personal equipment, suit, helmet, maps, pace note books, pens, watches, incar camera, batteries, flashlight, electrical tape or similar and so on...
- Check the weather and plan accordingly. Will the sun be shining, will there be rain, is it going to be -30 Celsius. If you retire on a stage would be good to have a rain coat if it's raining or something warm to wear if it's freezing. Notify others in the team what kind of weather to expect during the rally.

During recce:
- Make sure you have something to eat and drink in the car if the recce schedule is going to be tight. Keep the energy levels up for the duration of the day.
- Keep the driver aware that you have everything under control. Helps to keep the driver concentrating the subject at hand -> making the pace notes.
- Comment the pace notes if there is a place you might not fully agree. Discussion is OK, but the driver makes the final call for the notes.
- Check the pace notes at the hotel after the recce. Clean them if necessary so that they are easy to read during the rally.

During rally day:
-KEEP THE DRIVER CALM AT ALL TIMES! Of course drivers are individuals, but in most cases they have a tendency to have ants in their pants before the start. Even if they look calm they might be like a duck on a pond. On the surface everything is calm, but below the surface the  flippers are working like crazy. Co-drivers job is to be the guy who keeps the general atmosphere in control at all times.
- Double check your watches are on correct time.
- Double check you are everywhere in the right time. Being early or late for time control and getting penalized is a sure way to flush the rally down the toilet. Organizers mark these times to a time card which is with the car crew at all times during the rally. Co-driver calculates the times for each time control points and makes sure to get there during the correct minute.
- Instruct the driver to the start, stages, services, finish. People in many times think that this is done by using a map, but actually the organizers have provided very detailed road books where all the relevant junctions, road signs and  distances are marked.
- At the start of the stage start the stopwatch so that you can check after the stage that the people in time control mark the correct time on your time card for the special stage. If the time is wrong make a formal objection immediately otherwise your stuck with the incorrect time without the possibility to appeal.
- Start the incar/onboard camera to get something to watch at home or to put into the internet.
- Read the pace notes to the driver. Generally everybody thinks it's OK for the driver to make an error and crash the car, but co-drivers are expected not to make mistakes when reading the pace notes to the driver. If you're not 100% sure you are reading the correct note notify the driver IMMEDIATELY since his supposed to trust that the bend is exactly the one you are reading to him.


Above there are already a couple of tasks for the co-driver and this is just a point when your having a laugh with your friends during the weekend and enjoying rallying. Added to this all the work the driver and the mechanics do...