El Taxi Perdido's Blog

I’ve been told (over and over again) that communication is the key to any relationship and we’re certainly finding that to be true this week. For those of you who don’t know, here’s basically how these rally’s work. There’s a driver and a co-driver. The reason that the co-driver is called a driver at all, is because he is partially driving the car. How? By calling the corner (telling him how sharp the upcoming corner will be) and thus controling when to speed up and slow down. Every single turn and road detail (like speed bump or gravel on the road, etc) is listed in a turn by turn set of instructions. The turns are all rated from 0-4. 0 being a very fast turn, almost not a turn at all and 4 being something as severe as a u-turn, or in our case, a switch back. The idea is that the driver wonder what’s around the bend because the co-driver is telling him/her. So if I’m coming up to a corner and I obviously can’t see the other side of (the exit of the corner), normally I would slow down and go around the turn at a moderate speed until I could see where how sharp the turn was. In rally’s you don’t want to slow your pace, since the faster you cover a section the better your time and standing in the rank. So, the co-driver call out over the intercom wired into our helmets, 0 thru 4′s. And the driver does what he’s told. A typical few seconds might go like this;
co-driver: this next one is a 0 left, go, go, go, flat out
driver: Okay!
co-driver: next turn is a 4 right!
driver: okay, hard braking…now!
co-driver: you over cooked it!
driver; you called the corner too late!
co-driver: I did not! coming up on a 3 left!
driver: Did too! Got it, 3 left. Or was that right?
co-driver: GO VISUAL!

Go visual, is what the co-driver yells when he’s lost his place in the book. It’s a command for the driver to judge the speed at which he can enter the turn by sight, not by the corner calling. It’s also a great metaphor for life. When you lose your place in the turn by turn guide book, go visual!
Sorry, had to get a little deep on you there. This place does that to you. As does making these blog posts late at night after driving a full speed all day.
And speaking of the day, here’s a run down. Well, after starting from the back of the pack due to timing issues (there’s not ours) we were escorted out of Mexico City by police and I have to tell you it was awesome! Going 80mph down a two lane street in an urban center, in close formation, knowing that you can’t be ticketed. It was just great fun and it was only the transit section out to where we would do several really fast speed sections through the surrounds mountains. The bummer was that due to rain, we had to skip the race track in Mexico City, but did get on a track in Querataro that was good fun.
We spent about two hours in total, on the side of a mountain carving away at the corners, hauling the mail (that’s a new one I learned from some of the older guys, here. I guess mail delivery was actually considered fast at some point in time). And we did, ‘haul the mail’. We finished second in our class for the day and we’re making up ground from our lost time and penalties on Friday. That also means that tomorrow morning when we get our grid positions we’ll be further up and better able to log faster times. It’s going to be a great day. Conrad’s driving since I drove today and I’ll be calling the corners. He’s come down with a bit of a cold and is losing his voice, so it should be a quick and quiet day tomorrow. Stay tuned.

This little guy hailed a taxi and got a big surprise