While co-driving is incredibly fun, it is also incredibly elaborate and difficult. As I've explained over the course of this series the co-driver in many ways is the one running the show, setting the pace of the driver and the pace of the event itself. It takes a ton of hard work, concentration, and (especially) at the higher levels a ton of skill. So what does it mean if you, a new, nervous co-driver trying to keep on top of everything, make a mistake? It means you've officially become a genuine co-driver, because no matter how good a co-driver may be we've all got a few of those stories. I asked my fellow co-drivers to share some of theirs (and drivers to squeal on their co-drivers), and they delivered.
Full "Behind the Scenes" series archive.
I'll start with my own. New England Forest Rally 2011 was my first major rally and second rally overall. It was also Rory's first rally and our first event together. On the afternoon of the second day we lost our brakes. We stopped on the transit to diagnose the problem and found a ruptured line but didn't have the tools to fix it so we went ahead to the start of the next stage, hoping to get help from other teams. The plan worked as other crews took pity on us newbies, jacked up the car, pinched the line shut with a vice grip, and topped us off with brake fluid. With the car "ready" for the next stage we started putting our safety gear on. I reached into the car for my helmet and found... nothing. I searched through the cabin, the trunk, looked under the car, around the car, everywhere, no helmet. Then I looked at the roof and saw the slide marks from when it fell off. Turns out I left it on the roof when we stopped to diagnose our brake problem, meaning it's miles back down the road, probably in the woods. Now it's time for us to start and I had no helmet. I blew it, game over. Fortunately for me Kris Gove was at the start of the stage with his dead BMW. He gave me his helmet so could can keep racing. Unfortunately his helmet had no intercom and the stage we're running was over 15 miles. So I spent the entire 20 minutes we're on stage screaming notes at the top of my lungs and whacking the dashboard with my hand when I want Rory to slow down. We got to the stage finish, I'm completely hoarse, and Rory turned and said to me "I didn't hear a word you said."
Our TAG Rally Sport teammates didn't exactly shine at that rally either. Tracey had a brand new car, delivered the evening before the rally started. On the second day of the rally Tracey's co-driver Maureen can't get her window all the way up. No matter what she tries it won't budge. Some of the start control workers try to figure it out, one even taking the paneling off the door looking for a short. Finally the control workers just tell her to run the stage with the window down, but take it easy and be careful. The car comes into the finish and the inside is absolutely coated with dust. Another co-driver walks over, looks inside and says "The new car has power windows, right?"
Maureen replies "Yeah."
"So then it has window locks?"
From that point on as a joke the rest of the team would covertly turn the window locks on whenever possible.
Going through the submissions I received I quickly learned most mistakes fall in one of four categories: Navigational errors, forgotten/misplaced items, "rookie" mistakes, and "other." Unsurprisingly the navigational errors made up the majority, both on stage and on transit. Canadian racer Ryan Huber, a man familiar with both seats, starts us off.
First transit to first stage of my first rally, no working odo. Told my driver to get off the highway at the wrong exit, which wouldn't have been the end of the world except we couldn't get back on going the same way, had to backtrack the opposite direction before getting off again and turning around. Somehow we still made the control on time!
-Ryan Huber
One year at STPR (before modern notes) the last tulip instruction row was blank, and since we were only about .25mi from the the end of the stage I figured it was the last "real" tulip and they just kept the two tulips for the flying finish and the FTC together on the next page, so I never bothered to turn the page. When I read that "last" tulip to my father (who was driving) I also said that it was the last instruction until the finish. WRONG! Over the next (blind) crest we discovered a short downhill into a hairpin right! Surprisingly, he took that corner better than most!
-Matt Kennedy
My 3rd rally ever was nefr10, middle dam out, coming out fish pond road, stopped reading after "finish" haha oops! We almost had a big moment over the ! L5-
-Robert Sockalexis
Sand and Shovel Rally, Kingston, Ontario, 1970. Route followed a yellow line on a green map. Missed calling a left turn which put the SAAB 96 on a lake. Fortunately, it was January and the lake was frozen.
-Submitted by Lori Lass. Driver: Bill Lass, Co-driver: Ken Lass
Rocky Mountain Rally, no working odo on the long transit to Porcupine Hills... Got sooo lost we stopped at a gas station to get directions. The customer at the counter was a worker at the event and escorted us to the start of the stage... We got there before everyone!!!
-Elise Racette
2009 Mint 400, the first year it returned to the north side of Vegas, I was riding in a 12 car and the dust was so bad off the start that there were times I couldn't even see the GPS. We muddled though the first 20 or so miles with near zero visibility. All of a sudden the dust cleared and we hit a graded road after a rough section and were able to hit top gear pinned. We were so excited and relieved to be out of the brutal dust that we ran about 4 miles before I looked at the GPS and got a knot in my stomach when I realized I had to tell the driver that the dust cleared because we missed a 90 degree right. That was only the 2nd time I had navigated so it was quite the learning experience. If it seems too good to be true, you're probably off course!
-Jared "Bacon Boy" Tetzlaf
Don't point at friends you see on stage at a spectator intersection or your driver might take the way you point (at your friends) instead of staying on the stage.
-Zach Williams, driver now feared by his friends
Pikes Peak 2012, practice day 2, I got lost in the notes. Cody thought he knew where we were, but apparently not. We crashed at about 55mph into the mountain side. Gave me 4 rib dislocations, front & back, and a compressed spine. Awesome $37,000 doctor bill. But hey, Cody fixed the car overnight. We placed 2nd in Unlimited, I just couldn't breathe very well haha
-Tabitha Lohr, extremely tough co-driver (and wife) of Cody Loveland
Martin's fuel gauge has never worked in the Nissan 240. I always need to calculate our fuel requirements based on stage and transit distances and assumed consumption rates. First time competing at NEFR [New England Forest Rally] I neglected to make the relatively minor readjustment to my spreadsheet of changing from kilometres to miles. d'oh! We ran out of fuel while waiting to check into service and had to push the car through the Service Arrival Control.
Also 1st time at NEFR, stage notes for the shakedown stage were supplied in a separate handout. Figuring we had everything we needed, I left all the other books behind in the truck when we headed out to run the shakedown stage. It was only when Martin asked, "which way do we go?", that I realized I had no clue where the shakedown stage is located. Instructions for that were included in the main routebook, eh. d'oh! No problem, let's just follow this other car... Except they weren't going to the shakedown stage, they were doing the odo check which goes somewhere else. Double-d'oh!
-Ferdinand Trauttmansdorff
Like Ferdinand, Jim Perrin and Jen Horsey both gave a few great stories. Jim is a madman driver who thinks rallying a RWD Jeep with a Dixie horn is a good idea.
Nothing like when your codriver leaves the notes back at the hotel. You had one job!!!
My codriver also likes to make mistakes on transit by not reading the instructions to me, but interpreting them for me. We've missed more than one turn because he missed a few words in the tulips.
I think the best (so far) was when he told me to turn left instead of right after the finish of the stage, and we ended up back on the hot stage road traveling in the wrong direction. I can tell you that Chris Duplessis was just as surprised as I was when we saw each other.
Jen, meanwhile, is one of the majors in U.S. co-driving. She's co-driven for drivers like Andrew Comrie-Picard, Sam Hubinette, and just everyone who has played DiRT 2 or DiRT 3, and can now be heard as the on-air analyst for the Global Rallycross Championship on ESPN.
So many stories: 1) Base-60 math is hard. Many of us find out by making a mistake. I did. 2) Left my phone (AKA: GPS/calculator) on a teammate's car during a TV interview and it drove away. 3) Led about a dozen cars off-route on a transit because they assumed I knew where I was going...
The best thing about the "forgotten items" stories I got was the variety of items and the variety of ways co-drivers came up with to lose them. My helmet and Jen's phone are just the beginning in a long list of "where the fuck did it go?!" moments.
For some reason the only 17mm deepwell socket I had was in the rally car's toolkit but it was also the only tool I could use to tighten the plug on the VW's transmission drain plug. So I took socket out in service when I was filling the fluid. Then we had to rush out of service and barely made it with seconds to spare for no time penalty. Later on the stages, we got a flat tire. No big deal, until I realized that I left the socket that was in the toolkit (that I needed to get the wheels off and raise the jack) back in service and had no spare socket in the car. Jared Lantzy and I then stood on the side of the road, I know at least I was on the roof making Elvis hip thrusts and arm swings, until sweep came by and luckily they had the socket for us. From now on, Rally car tools never leave the car, NEVER!!!
-Billy Mann
Forgot to pack a flashlight in my co-driver bag, and of course we got a flat in the middle of a long night stage. We spent 10 minutes trying to change it because first of all it was a VW with wheel bolts not studs, and not only did we keep losing the bolts in the grass, the brake rotor had somehow rotated on the hub so the holes no longer lined up and we couldn't figure out in the dark why the wheel bolts wouldn't go in the holes. My usually calm driver was so mad he threw my route book on the ground! I now have a pack list and take apart/re-assemble my co-driver bag before every event.
-Leanne Junilla
It was my first year of racing, maybe the 4th event the USUK Rally Focus ran. We were having some electrical issues, so during service I had to go head first into my footwell to make sure all the wires to the computer were still connected. To provide myself with space, I pulled my codriver bag out and put it in the passenger seat of the service truck. I go headfirst, make sure all is well, and we continue servicing the car and we were done with servicing a bit early. There was a really great spectator location coming up, so we sent our crew chief off so that he could go spectate in the service truck. A couple minutes later, as we are getting back in the car, I couldn't find my bag! There was no cell service and both my stage notes and route notes were in the service truck!
-Kieran Wright, co-driver for USUK Racing
There are lots of variations of losing the time card or leaving the time cards somewhere far out of reach. I left the time card in the service truck and realized it while waiting in line to check out of service, a couple of minutes before our out time. It was a hot day and I had my driving suit only halfway on. I ran back to the service truck as fast as I could and it was hard to keep my driving suit from falling down to my legs. But I was more concerned about a late check out than my dignity.
-Alan Perry
Forgetting spare socks. ALWAYS bring spare socks.
-Christian Edstrom, former co-driver for Travis Pastrana
Our rally car keys were inexplicably left on the bumper of the truck. The other truck. The one at home 300 miles away.
-Brandon Be
Make sure you don't mistakenly reset the time on your watch.........and then remember your backup time piece is back on the front seat of the service rig. Uh whoops.
And for the love of god, if you think you might have to pee go when you have a chance, otherwise you might force your driver to pull over on a busy interstate, because you think your bladder will burst before your reach service.
-Seth Achilles
Keith Morrison not only has co-driving experience but is now marketing manager for the Canadian Rally Championship. Apparently his forgetfulness followed him over.
Was given the time cards for the whole event and left them at home for Day 2, where service is an hour and a half drive from home.
The one story of forgetfulness that made me laugh out loud came from Andy Grider. Andy is best known as the Honda B Team rider in the movie "Dust to Glory," holding of Johnny Campbell when Campbell takes to the beach. In 2009 Andy was co-driving on what is almost certainly the biggest stage in all of rally, and he forgot one of the last things one might think they even need to remember.
I left the steering wheel in the hotel room for the start of the 2009 Dakar.
I'm going to start the rookie mistakes with the most impressive example of all, Vittorio Bares had a co-driver who forgot the rally itself:
I had a co-driver miss the start...the phone conversation went something like this...
"Uhm, we're in the drivers meeting, where are you?"
"...huh? C'mon, it's not until tomorrow...right? RIGHT!?! ..."
She made record time on a 2hr drive. We did manage 1/2 the stages.
Ok, so at Rallye de Quebec one winter long ago we skipped Parc Ferme at the end cuz we were cold n tired and so far back in the pack I thought it wasn't necessary to go in. Back at the hotel, I hadn't even got a hot shower yet when the phone rang—it was the organizers, "we're just wondering, where the hell ARE you guys?" i pled total ignorance (which was true) and by some miracle they didn't kick us out.
-Dave Getchell
Check your math so the 8.2 seconds ahead of the 3rd place guy that you fought hard to gain isn't lost in a 10 second penalty for checking in at the wrong time at the final MTC.
-Matthew Conte
Did my transit math wrong and insisted my driver check in two minutes early, thinking the driver ahead of us was playing mind games by checking in late.
-Keith Morrison (yes, the same Keith Morrison)
Turned over two pages in the notes instead of one.
Dropped my route book into the footwell mid stage. It fortunately fell onto the driver's side and he kicked it back. Didn't miss a call.
Put my timecard on the roof of the car, and then drove off without retrieving it.
-Adrian Wintle
I remember somebody's co-driver flying in a week early and the driver having to find another co-driver.
I got time barred because my co-driver didn't know the time cards are calculated differently in Canada.
My first event my co-driver read all the tulips in the first mile of a 10 mile stage and then said "You are on your own, don't kill me!"
-Justin Pritchard, tattletale driver
Now for the stories that didn't quite fit in any of the other categories, be it because the mistake was caused by an accident, a stomach, or a driver who wanted to cool off.
Left the finish control at Sandblast one year without double checking the time card. Got about a mile up the road and realized the worker forgot to enter our time.
-Matt Rhoads
Arrived at an accident got out, helmet off on ground, turned isolator off for them, helped out, eventually carried on with someone else's helmet that didn't have HANS poles and was 2 sizes too big. This is why I now have stickers all over my Stilo helmet.
-Toni Feaver
Pete Hascher and I stopped for an ice refill, during transit, at a drive thru, for our Cool Shirt Cooler, and almost missed ATC check-in.
-Scott McGill, Cool Shirt-wearing wimp of a co-driver (sweat it out like the rest of us, Scott!)
Learned the hard way that something like Scopolamine is a requirement for some co-drivers. 120-130F temps in the cabin and lots of little jumps and L3 into R3 into L3 will help you figure that one out real quick. Luckily I had supplied my co-driver with a handful of ziplocks!
-Chris Rosner, driver, but fortunately not this driver
My co-driver got sick, puked first time just before the start line, ran the whole stage blind, he got back into it for 4 more stages, we pull up to the final finish... hand the card to the control worker who goes to show him the time just as my co-driver opens the door and spills all the cookies (yes he ate cookies) all over the worker's feet! Worker shows me the card, good enough! Was epic for us and a few spectators as well.
-Anthony Israelson, driver, also not this driver
Finishing us off is Alex Kihurani, a former Jalopnik Live Q&A session participant, and a man who has co-driven for over 30 different drivers in just ten years. His story comes from this year's round of WRC Mexico.
I rented a VW Jetta with a whole bunch of aftermarket parts rebranded as something else for Mexico. The rather second-hand aftermarket exhaust made the car sound quite a bit like a TDI. When we went to the gas station the first morning of recce to fill up, I confidently told the attendant to put diesel in the car. When he said something back to me I couldn't understand, I just ignored it and told him to fill it up. Of course the car had a petrol engine and made it about 20 feet before coming to a halt. We ended up losing 2 hours (of WRC recce!) trying to sort out what to do and getting the Ford F450 service truck to go recce stages. The day included a lot of 3 point turns as we missed several 2nd passes! Never felt so stupid in my life. We more or less told the rental company that we don't speak Spanish and don't understand why a bunch of Mexicans put diesel in our petrol tank, so they didn't charge us anything to switch out the rental car, or for any damages!
Nice. So which story was the most hilariously embarrassing? Let us know in Kinja below.
Photo credits:
Lead photo, photos 2 & 14: Pete Kuncis, On A Limb Racing
Photo 3: Tag Rally Sport
Photo 4: Peter MacDonald
Photo 5: C/O DoublePlus Racing
Photo 6: Pat Dailey
Photo 7: Jim Perrin
Photo 8: Neil McDaid
Photo 9: Simon Wright
Photo 10: Luis Alberto Gomez Salazar
Photo 11: Joshua Bressem
Photo 12: C/O Justin Pritchard
Photo 13: Cody Beyer
Rally Co-Driving Behind the Scenes, Part 9: Oops