I first became aware of the World Rally Championship (WRC) in 2001, when I moved to my current house and installed cable internet. The installer inadvertently also gave me free TV cable, which introduced me to SPEEDTV. Of all the race shows I watched, the only one which held my interest was WRC. I was amazed at how fast cars could travel down narrow gravel roads, make unbelievable turns, and still stay on course. I was hooked, and I'm still hooked after more than 10 years of following the motorsport.
SO.. what is a Rally? WRC at wikipedia.org
A typical WRC rally is a 3 day event with several stages per day. A stage is an individually timed race from point A to point B, on a predetermined route. The winner of the rally is the Team with the lowest accumulative time for all the stages. A Driver and Co-driver, aka a navigator, make up a Team. The Co-driver reads "pace notes", (the directions of the stage), while the Driver goes as fast as possible without going off course. Unlike other motorsports, a rally is raced with the competitors starting at 2 minute intervals from each other. This allows all Drivers to be able to drive the road the way they want to, picking their best line through the corners.
What is a Stage?
As I mentioned previously, a stage is the race course from point A to point B. It can be as short as 2 km [1.2 miles} to longer than 100 km [62 miles]. The course can be on tarmac, gravel, dirt, even snow, or all the above, depending on the place and time of year. The course is usually on established public or private roadways, which are then closed at the time of the race. During a day of rally, there may be as many as 10 stages to drive, and a total of 26 stages for a 3 day event.
The Service Park
Service Park (SP) at a rally is equivalent to the Pit Lane at a conventional race track. The SP is where the rally car is refueled, tires changed, engines fixed, suspensions adjusted, etc. It's also the Team's HQ for the rally. There are trailers for the Driver and Co-driver to relax, sleep, eat. Trailers for the Team to run diagnostics for the car, and trailers for the Team to have full communication with the car, helicopter, ground crew, and Press. During the 3 day rally, the car can only be at the SP in between certain stages. A typical day of racing starts with the car at the SP for a safety inspection, then off to the first stage of the day, (which could be 50 km away from the SP), after a few more stages, it's back to the SP for refueling, fixing, adjusting, and tire changing. The Team is only allowed a certain amount of time to do all the work that needs to be done. If the Team goes over the allotted time, a time penalty is incurred for each minute, (10 seconds for each minute is added to the race time). This makes the prioritization of the work extremely important. The Team might have to choose fixing a suspension arm over fixing a wrinkled fender.
Service Park (SP) at a rally is equivalent to the Pit Lane at a conventional race track. The SP is where the rally car is refueled, tires changed, engines fixed, suspensions adjusted, etc. It's also the Team's HQ for the rally. There are trailers for the Driver and Co-driver to relax, sleep, eat. Trailers for the Team to run diagnostics for the car, and trailers for the Team to have full communication with the car, helicopter, ground crew, and Press. During the 3 day rally, the car can only be at the SP in between certain stages. A typical day of racing starts with the car at the SP for a safety inspection, then off to the first stage of the day, (which could be 50 km away from the SP), after a few more stages, it's back to the SP for refueling, fixing, adjusting, and tire changing. The Team is only allowed a certain amount of time to do all the work that needs to be done. If the Team goes over the allotted time, a time penalty is incurred for each minute, (10 seconds for each minute is added to the race time). This makes the prioritization of the work extremely important. The Team might have to choose fixing a suspension arm over fixing a wrinkled fender.