I don't want to be kept in the dark.

Reading pace notes, that is...

Both times I've been out in the 958 on a rally I've needed to use a light to read the notes. The light we use in the 958 is on a flexible neck and has a small conventional lightbulb in it that, in theory, you adjust to where you want it, to shine on your notes to read them. 

Fine and dandy in theory. But the battering a rally car takes means that the light bounces all over the place due to the flexible neck and I end up holding the thing to keep it (relatively) still. Then it starts to get in the way of my reading the notes. Devoting your full concentration to reading is difficult when you're also trying to keep a clear view of the page of notes. Then you have to let go of the light to turn a page in said notes, it springs away from you and you have to reach for it again. 

"What a faff!" As we say back in my home county of Lincolnshire. (What a fuss.) My attention should be on holding the notes and reading them. 

There are ways around this. Like lights mounted to the roll cage for instance. There's a very nice one here, made by Don Barrow in the UK. LED's mounted in some roll cage padding. I think it's a great idea. But at over $100. That's a not inconsiderable amount of money that could go towards an entry fee or a really important car part. It seems to me a much more sensible idea to have your lighting and notes together in close proximity. To that end I came up with my own idea. An illuminated clipboard.

 Now you're all going to say.

"But I can buy an illuminated clipboard from Amazon, you've not invented anything."

But that one on Amazon is a conventional clipboard with a clip at the top. Try turning pages of pace notes on that one in a hurry. 

My concept has a rod at the side that you slide your spiral, or comb bound notes onto so that you can turn the pages freely.

Conventional clipboards are also made of rigid materials so that you can write on the papers clipped thereon. This isn't needed when you're reading notes. So I'd replace that with some kind of more flexible, lower density foam. Because if you have an incident and end up rolling down an embankment it's better to have some foam flying around the cabin rather than wood or a hard plastic.

To me it seems like a blindingly obvious idea and if someone knows of something like this that exists already, I'd be interested to know about it. But so far I haven't found anything.