Taking Note

I was skimming through the pages of the WRC website yesterday checking up on the progress of Rally Mexiko (their spelling not mine) and I came across this.

"Leading FIA World Rally Championship drivers have welcomed the inclusion of the 80KM (50 miles) Guanajuato stage at this years Rally Mexico.-

-The headline-grabbing gravel stage is the longest to be included in a WRC event for 30 years and contains 194 junctions as it meanders through the mountains to the north and east of host city Léon.

-it is anticipated to take around 50 minutes to get from the start to the finish. World champion co-driver Julien Ingrassia has 106 pages of hand-written pacenotes for this stage alone."

I had to sit there and let that sink in a little. 

Perhaps you should too.

Now I know I'm still a novice at this co-driving business, but that is a mind boggling amount. 

My first experience co-driving the notes ran for 2 1/2 pages of about 8 stage miles, and it took quite a bit of concentration to follow the notes for that short length of time. Now I know it's the co-drivers job, but to concentrate on your notes for the best part of an hour must be quite energy sapping. Not to mention the logistics of holding a 106 page book in your hands, turning the pages what amounts to every 30 seconds. What happens if as you turn a page, the car hits a bump knocks the book from your hands and you loose your page? 

Let's try and imagine what this is going to be like. Go and find a 100 page book, sit down on a dining room chair (tying yourself down to it tightly so you can barely move is optional as we're straying in 50 shades of Grey territory then) and try and read it out loud while someone is bouncing that chair up and down and from side to side. Score extra points if you also run your lawnmower to simulate engine noise and have a heater on high to recreate the Mexican heat.

So, much respect to every single co-driver out there on this marathon stage on Sunday morning. When the in-car footage becomes available on WRC+ I'll be spending several hours of my day watching carefully. I follow quite a few rally drivers and co-drivers on Twitter and Facebook and I'm for sure going to be checking them all to see if they post any pictures of this tome.