Co-drivers are regarded as being a special breed.  Not everyone can be a budding Colin McRae, but all co-drivers need to display many skills in order to ensure safe passage, not only through the competitive bits but also in guiding the car and driver between the stages and service areas.

Drivers come to rely heavily on their co-drivers, and not just in the car.  During all the pre-event build up a co-driver will usually find himself organising the entry, the service schedule, etc and be responsible for looking after mundane things like the drivers insurance, competition licence, and so on.  Drivers turn to their co-drivers for all sorts of help and information before and during the event.

While in the car, the co-driver has to keep track of all the requirements to get from A to B in the allotted time.  All rallies run to a pre-determined time schedule, and competitors have to adhere to this or be either penalised or excluded.

Before the introduction of Route Notes on all Scottish Championship events, co-drivers who had the ability to 'read' the road from Ordnance Survey maps were worth their weight in gold.   Such skills - along with the ability to keep to a time schedule - were invariably developed in navigational rallying, which over the last few years have declined in popularity.

Navigational rallying still provides the best and cheapest way of both driving and co-driving as they take place on public roads where standard cars have as much chance of winning as anything else.   Navigational rallies are 'secret' rallies where the route between controls is worked out on the move, the whole event being run to an average speed of no more than 30mph.  A good driver will get nowhere, however, without a good co-driver alongside.

Co-drivers could help their drivers maintain a decent average speed by reading the road ahead from their OS 1:50000 maps, giving details of bend severity and the like.  These skills were then transferred to the woods where speeds are much higher and any possible advantage crucial in the search for a quicker time.

With the introduction of Route Notes on all Scottish Championship events in 1997, the emphasis for the co-drivers changed.  Route Notes are regarded as being safer than reading maps, and enable the co-driver to give his driver more information of the road ahead.  Co-drivers have to learn different skills, particularly the ability to read the notes at a pace that suits his driver.  There are also many different versions of Route Notes, usually determined by what a driver prefers.  The most popular versions are known as 'numeric' or 'descriptive', but there are no less than 9 formats available on all Scottish Championship events.  Check out the pages of real notes accessible from the 'championship' menu option.

As a result, the co-driver has become an even more important member of the crew.  Anybody can sit there and 'be driven', but a driver looking for that extra advantage will quickly realise the importance of a good co-driver.  Stage rallying is very much a team game.

Unfortunately, it's getting more difficult to find co-drivers who are both able to cope with the demands of the job and able to contribute - financially or otherwise - to the cost of getting a rally car to the start of an event.  Stage rallying is not a cheap sport, with the bulk of the cost being borne by the owner of the vehicle, so any contribution is gratefully received by the majority of competitors.

If anyone is interested in learning more about this little-publicised aspect of the sport (and other disciplines) they should contact their local Car Club for details, or check out the web site of the sports governing body - the Motor Sports Association.