learn me tsd rallying

so I think that I understand the basic concept of time-speed-distance rally; competitors have a specific amount of time to cover an exact distance on a specific course, that time is based on a specific average travel speed . Scoring is based on a teams ability to maintain that average speed precisely. Am I correct?

If I wanted to try one, what is the minimum/simplest equipment needed for time/pace keeping?

Is there a tsd 101 online tutorial someone could steer me toward?

I am entertaining the idea of entering the pine barrons express tsd later this month.

All you need is a stop watch. I borrowed A book to get started and didin a tutorial that my local (Detroit) SCCA region offers every year so I guess I cheated. There was also a GRM a few years ago that covered TSD basics. Its a good time. Just make sure that your navigator is good with math (I navigate and my wife drives even though I'm the one who does track days). I decent map light isn't quite a must but I wouldn't rally without one. A book light would also work. We run with extra lights and I curse myself everytime we go out for not having installed them.

For your first rally, concentrate on not getting lost. Its sometimes harder than you'd think.

General start up TSD 101

General safety TSD 102

Terms glossary TSD 103

General Instructions TSD 104

Calculating Odometer Factors TSD 105

All tutorials courtesy of Scott Harvey of the Detroit Region SCCA

minimum equipment is a stopwatch, a car with a working odometer, a pen, a highlighter, and a good navigator.

Step one ... Get a Navigator you won't kill when you get angry.

Step two Don't sweat the math for your first rally. Plus the PBX is more about not getting lost in the woods then it is about being on time.

Step three Arrive early, read the instructions twice at least.... The PBX is all tulips with milage to each turn.

The PBX is very easy if you want to calculate. You can do it all in the hall before the event if you get there early.

... Do it! See you there!

Oh yea .... Five links at the bottom of this page to five very good TSD lessons.

Southern NJ SCCA Rally Page

Don't worry about the time, just learn how to stay on course. It's not as easy as it sounds, especially if your club is into the "go straightest" stuff.

Have a navigator you can really get along with. Can't emphasize this enough.

Become that navigator if you can't control your lead foot.

Minimum equipment needs as a beginer are a stop watch. A good map, pencil and paper are also darn handy. The navigator should have dramamene. After that, it's all bells and whistles and puts you into competitive classes you aren't ready for.

Laugh at your mistakes, you'll make plenty. Once it took me and the driver about a dozen tries to get out of the parking lot. Go have fun, enjoy the scenery. Ignore everything about buying time or trying to guess where check points are and such. That will come later, quite a bit later.

Beginner's rule of thumb: add 10% to the published CAS. This will take care of most of the slowing for turns and so forth. I've found it works surprisingly well.

PBX is quite a rally. Make sure you take something with good ground clearance and excellent lighting. Don't forget to provide some kind of interior map light for your navigator. I wouldn't worry about doing any calculations. Staying on course is more important than worrying about your early/late time. If you stay on course, you'll already be doing better than half the novice teams.

The PBX is an awesome rally!

A word of advise, Do Not Speed through the state parks !!!

Learn how to use the time allowances, they are very liberal with them, so use them.

I did a few TSD rallies on public roads, and mental math would have been a good skill to have. Knowing how to read road signs is another. Not just the big obvious ones, but the little markers too. For the ones that I did, they gave you a speed to maintain, but not a distance.

1.Turn left onto main street

2.Turn right onto Rt.12

There could be 20 yards in between, there could be 20 miles!

Are there rallies in Fla.???

After you are comfortable with a navigator and where you are going, then deal with time. I ran many years in Group B which is without a computer and often I would beat most computers by being aware of where I was on the road. Example, If the average speed is 40, and you come up on a slow corner, look at what speed you are doing in the middle of the corner and accelerate over by the amount you slowed and then let the car coast back to the average speed. With that you will be close to start.

If I remember correctly the PBX has tulip instructions (drawings of the intersection) as well as mileage to every turn. Its a class B/C navigators dream.

In fact I believe in the past there have been some class C overall winners.

I did one in a car equipped with a full-on rally computer :) Took all of the math games out of it - we simply set the computer to show average speed, and reset it every time there was a change.

And we still got our butts whipped. A TSD isn't really a driving event, it's a puzzle event. At least the one we did was. The guy who was having the most fun on our event didn't even have a speedometer in his car, he was just out for a fun drive.

Heh two years ago we ran PBX in class B with a laptop computer with an excel spreadsheet to do the calculations. Imagine my poor codriver trying to read and type into the tiny boxes while bumping around at speed through the potholes and washboards :P Awesome rally.

I remember one year making the first turn out of the firehouse then screwing up the very first instruction and getting lost in a wooded lot with about half a dozen other cars all meandering around between the trees. Classic PBX ;)

I think the problem with the TSD I did was that there was a large lack of "at speed". The average speed for stages was simply set at 2 mph under the speed limit. And these were roads where the speed limit was not difficult to maintain in, say, a loaded Winnebago. I'm glad we did it - it was good prep for the Targa - but exciting it was not.

And yes, we turned the wrong way out of the parking lot. In a full-on rally prepped car complete with sponsor stickers, our names above the windows and scrubbed-in RA1s. Whoops.

PBX is all Tulip ... Mostly at night and in the Pine Barrens of NJ (Soft sandy roads and hard packed fire trails).

It was won overall several times by non-equipted teams (Pete and Frank if you know them and some others) doing all the calculations on a four function calculator.

For those serious competators with computers you may be disapointed as the milages "drift" prety badly. ( I think it's more about the roads shifting and the timing lines not being in the right spot more then it being poorly measured)

Jeff

+1 on Foxtrapper's advice. Staying on course is ALWAYS your number-one priority.

To add: if you're going to do calculations, you need two stopwatches. Of course, you need a watch, too, for rally time.

If the rally is run at night, get a RED reading light (a headlamp works very well) to preserve your driver's night vision. Take a piece of red plastic to cover a white light (I use red office hanging file tabs on my Petzl headlamp). Some companies sell headlamps that'll burn red.

Also if run at night, do not use a yellow, pink or orange high-lighter: use PURPLE or, in a pinch, green.

Use a mechanical pencil with .07mm lead. Do not use 0.5mm lead as it is too fragile and will break all the time (unless you're running an all-paved rally).

Circle or otherwise highlight all casts, pauses, turns, and cautions.

Another website: www.tsdroadrally.com/

Last, here's the best book on the topic: http://www.goss.com/catrrh.htm We're talking about a pretty esoteric sport here, so your local library won't likely have it. However, if you stop in and ask for an "interlibrary loan" they should be able to get it for you.

foxtrapper wrote: Don't worry about the time, just learn how to stay on course. It's not as easy as it sounds, especially if your club is into the "go straightest" stuff. Have a navigator you can really get along with. Can't emphasize this enough. Become that navigator if you can't control your lead foot. Minimum equipment needs as a beginer are a stop watch. A good map, pencil and paper are also darn handy. The navigator should have dramamene. After that, it's all bells and whistles and puts you into competitive classes you aren't ready for. Laugh at your mistakes, you'll make plenty. Once it took me and the driver about a dozen tries to get out of the parking lot. Go have fun, enjoy the scenery. Ignore everything about buying time or trying to guess where check points are and such. That will come later, quite a bit later.

foxtrapper wrote: Don't worry about the time, just learn how to stay on course. It's not as easy as it sounds, especially if your club is into the "go straightest" stuff.

Can't emphasize this enough. Don't know about PBX but "some people" like to make it difficult.

Picture pulling up to a 4-way stop in a small town. At the same time 3 other cars in the rally do the same from the other 3 directions. All of you stop at the stop sign and then turn right and go your on your merry way.

At least that is what was supposed to happen, there were four different sets of directions! What actually happened was hilarious to watch from my hiding place up the street.

Thank for the advice, I I do it this year I will probably be navigator, my play car isn't ready for offroading (or bad roading) yet. I'm looking to be real competitve at this time, just looking to have some fun playing in the sand.

btw what is tulip?

These are tulip diagrams: http://targamiata.com/images_lrg/Brigus.pdf

Basically, it shows the intersection in question. You enter from the bottom and follow the arrow.

Keith wrote: I think the problem with the TSD I did was that there was a large lack of "at speed". The average speed for stages was simply set at 2 mph under the speed limit. And these were roads where the speed limit was not difficult to maintain in, say, a loaded Winnebago.

One of the fun things about PBX is that they used closed controls and after you pass a checkpoint, you're given a BFZ to get to a specific NRI x minutes after you reached the last checkpoint. Usually those x minutes are very aggressive. One time I recall being given 2 minutes to go 2.x miles (in the dead of night on a 1-lane sand road with trees an inch off either mirror). I guess it's a technicality because it's a free zone and there's no CAS specified, so they're not really telling you to break any speed limits ;P

Then there's always the classic "making it up" instead of taking a TA after executing a wrong turn 3 miles back :)

Anothing fun thing is if you're doing calculations, you can run 3/4 of each stage at any speed you want, then pull over, let the clock catch up, and run the CAS just till you reach the next checkpoint. That's assuming you have a rough idea of where the next checkpoint is, but it works pretty well most of the time ;)

I think the best part of the PBX is looking ahead in the instructions and seeing a CAS ahead marked as 12 MPH, and thinking ... "OH crap that road is going to be more like a goat trail." Luckily there few and far between.

When is the PBX and is it too late to register?

PBX flyer click here

My Escort is about to get dumped about an inch. Do you think I might be pushing it with ground clearance?

bigwrench wrote: Are there rallies in Fla.???

Good question. My wife and I used to run with the Orlando Sports Car Club and we really had fun. They'd usually start in Orlando and run through the surrounding counties. Sadly, I haven't heard from them in years.

And what the others have said it true, don't get lost.