Most of us have heard the phrases “fail to prepare, prepare to fail” or similarly the 7Ps of performance, “proper prior preparation prevents piss poor performance.” These could not be more applicable to rally. In my ten years of competition, not finishing an event was most commonly attributed to not properly preparing for it in the first place. While we might not all have the time and resources of a fully supported team, we can take lessons from the professionals in our sport that we can apply to our own personal efforts.
I can break down rally preparation into three categories: mechanical, mental, and physical. Mechanical is pretty self explanatory as it has to do with the mechanical preparation of the car. The second two have more to do with us as drivers, codrivers, and even applies to members of our crew. Let’s look at these with a little more detail.
Mechanical
First off, recognize that every part of a rally car is consumable. I’m not going to go into detail of how to build a car for longevity but know that every part will wear out, crack, bend, break, or expire. It takes careful attention to detail to inspect the car to make sure everything is good to go. Let’s take a look at a punch list and talk about a few things.
- Fluids – The heat of rally racing breaks everything down faster. I personally replace engine oil, transmission oil, and differential oil every event. They protect some of the most expensive pieces of the car and it’s cheap insurance to keep those surfaces lubricated. Dampers and CVs are commonly neglected as well. Some fresh high temperature CV grease will keep your axles going a long time. If you have ever serviced an old CV joint used in rally you’ll notice the grease has almost turned to water and is doing little to keep things lubricated. Dampers, are generally easy to service without having to do a full rebuild. A quick re-oil or regrease and a quick check of the nitrogen level will help make them last for seasons. A damper with aging lubrication or inconsistent nitrogen levels will affect their behavior on stage. This could lead to the car behaving differently in all four corners which isn’t going to perform well on stage and also ruin your confidence. A consistently behaving car allows you to learn to be faster and push harder.
- Brakes – A little tidbit I learned from my old crew chief, Tony Torchia, is that the insane level of heat you produce with the brakes will actually draw out the resin attaching the brake pad material to the backing plate. A seemingly healthy looking brake pad that’s only 50% worn could actually have severely diminished braking performance because that resin is also contacting the rotor. If they’re getting worn and it feels like you’re losing braking effectiveness, swap them out (and make sure you bed the new ones properly).
- Bearings and bushings – A worn out component especially in your suspension is going to change toe, camber, etc. on stage again leading to inconsistent handling. If you’re taking things seriously, track all of the components and see how long it takes things to start to wear or fail and you can set up a preventative maintenance schedule. For instance, I replace wheel bearings every three events or at the first sign of wear. Along with that means checking the hub and knuckle to make sure you’re not putting in a fresh bearing on out of spec components.
- Alignment – This goes back to making the car consistent to give you the confidence to push harder. I like to get the car on scales at least once a year to check my corner balance but you should at least do it when you’re doing your very first setup and with any major changes to the car. Getting the car balanced allows everything else to work that much better. You don’t need to go get a laser alignment every event. A string alignment kit and camber gauge are cheap to purchase or make your own and there’s plenty of guides out on the internet on how to do a four wheel alignment. Properly setting toe more than anything else is the focus. Again make it consistent side to side and find some specs that work on your car. Do this for every event. For the curious, I run -1mm front side to side and -0.5mm rear side to side. The toe in up front help keeps the car neutral under braking from the deflection in the bushings and the rear toe in keeps it stable on those high speed straightaways. If you’re using proper weight transfer, you shouldn’t need any toe out to get the car to rotate. There’s a great online course from RaceCraft on alignment and I recommend it if you want to learn more.
- Spares – The inevitable will happen and despite your best efforts, something will break, you’ll hit something, whatever. Put as much effort into making sure your spares are ready to go as well and not just something you pulled from the junkyard and put in a bin. Those spares can quickly become your primary and you don’t want to have a wheel fall off a few miles after you swapped out a corner. Ask me how I know…
- Nuts and bolts – Check them all. Suspension, motor mounts, crossmembers, etc. All that vibration works them loose. One of the most common bolts I would find loosening up is the transmission crossmember bolts.
- Time – Do not procrastinate. We have all seen the stories of crazy last minute prep to make an event but it’s one of the worst things we can do and almost always leads to compromise and reduced expectations. The more time you have, the more you can pay attention to detail, save costs on shipping, and the more things you can do to prepare to win. Make a list early on, set priorities, and just start knocking them out. It’s less stress and you will be more successful.
Mental
As if the car doesn’t take enough of your time, there’s a lot of things we can do mentally to be prepared for the event as well. A little extra effort beforehand can make the event itself be less stressful and you’ll be armed with a little more information rather than kicking in the door and hoping for the best.
- Get familiar with the event – Most people will tell you their second time at an event is usually much better than the first. They know where the service park is, where’s the nearest coffee shop, and the general flow of the event. Take a look at the supplemental regulations and pull out a map and start getting familiar with where everything is. Take a look at the names of transit roads, how far away things are from your accommodations, etc. etc. This is where an experienced codriver can come in handy and they can help draw the picture of what the weekend will look like. As a driver, don’t wait to read the supps the night before recce. Just having the situational awareness of where things are and the schedule when you’re not initially familiar with the event goes a long way to just feeling comfortable and minimizing the unknowns.
- Review stages – You can find nearly every stage posted up on Youtube and even some organizers will post up recce video way in advance of the event. I don’t recommend trying to memorize every single stage as that brings about a certain level of risk but you can definitely start to pick out recognizable sections and gotcha corners that stick out to you. Get an idea of the flow, the surfaces, sight lines, how narrow the roads are, etc. You’ll be that much more prepared.
- Managing Stress – Last minute car prep, lack of sleep, three days of shift towing to an event, the list goes on. The more time you can give yourself and the better you use the that time, the more you’ll be on top of things. Reality is going to have its say but you should also try to prioritize yourself a little time to decompress and rest. As competitors we always feel like we have to be doing something, especially once you show up to an event. The excitement creeps in and we get amped. Slow down and give your brain a break and you’ll attack those stages with that much more clarity.
Physical
There is no doubt that a long rally weekend is a test of your endurance and stamina. Heart rates are often up in the 140s to 150s which is like going out for a jog. There’s a lot of physical stress that comes with rallying but there are definitely some things we can do beforehand to help handle that stress. Being healthy first and foremost is the big one. Lack of exercise, sleep, and poor eating habits are going to limit your performance no matter the endeavor. Add in the stress of a rally weekend and you’ll get tired faster, lose focus, and be at a greater risk of making poor judgment and potentially having a major off. If you look at any of professionals in the sport, they all have some sort of exercise routine that usually focuses on core strength and moderate cardiovascular exercise. A full detailed plan is a topic of another article but being physically prepared goes a long way into giving you confidence once the rally weekend hits.
Nutrition is an important thing to look at as well and I like to tell people to be careful of the temptation to get easy fast food leading up to and during an event. They tend to be high in carbohydrates that will spike and crash your energy levels. Eating a balanced diet with whole foods will keep your energy levels consistent throughout the weekend.
Conclusion
This isn’t meant to be the end all, be all of rally preparation but rather something to help get you thinking of ways you can be better at preparing for an event. Making the actual stage miles the fun and easy part of an event lets you focus on your driving and getting the most out of you and your team’s performance. Waiting ’till the last minute, worrying about whether you tightened that bolt, and coming down off a sugar high is no way to be driving a rally car. What you want is to be able to drive up to that start line with a free and clear head focused on the next few corners ahead of you, with a car you trust, and armed with the confidence that you know that you did everything you could to perform your best.