Rally Navigation

Navigation. Unarguably a critical aspect of rally. Fortunately, the navigation for these events is actually quite easy, since there is no open desert of dunes, only actual roads. Let's jump right in and show you what a typical roll chart looks like. This one is from an actual RallyMoto™ event, Rally Tennessee in 2008. It is the very beginning of the chart, show how to start the transit from the actual rally start and head out to the first stage.

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Ok, let's explain what you see. "Tree Farm" is the name of the first stage, so you know that this section taking you from the start to the Tree Farm stage. "Overall" refers to the overall mileage. Be sure you re-zero your odometer whenever the roll does. In the Info column, you see a reference to "TC0". This is short for "Time Control Zero". Reaching the time control at the first stage you'll see that noted as TC1 and so on for each stage.

In all cases, you start at the dot on the bottom of the diagram and work your way toward the arrow. These diagrams are called "tulips", since they can look a little like flowers. Ok, it's a bit of a stretch... but that's where the name comes from. So the rally begins with a right turn from the time control and then the next turn is a left (just 0.03 miles later, about 150 feet) onto a road called Squirrel Hollow.

The info column will usually have the names of the roads you're supposed to turn onto, or sometimes as in the case of the tulip at 0.15, the names of the roads that you're not supposed to turn on to. This is notated by an asterisk in this case, but each event generally notes this differently. As you can see from this tulip, you're just driving straight though a four way intersection. So the cross road info is there just to reassure you that you're in the right place.

You can find a variety of other symbols in there too, which is why it is important to check the glossary for that particular event. For example, in this strip there is a little dash on the inside of the turn at mileage 1.32. That tells you where the "30 MPH" sign is located.