The Co-Driver's Craft — Beyond the Pace Notes, a Blueprint of Trust
'Four left, long, caution crest.' Those words are the driver's lifeline. Without a co-driver, there is no rally
Rally always carries two people. The spectators fix their gaze on the driver at the wheel, but without the person in the passenger seat reading pace notes without pause, the driver might as well be running blind. What exactly is a co-driver? Centring on the co-driver culture nurtured in Italy's rally scene, we step inside the world of this invisible protagonist.
Pace notes follow notation: corner severity 1 (tightest) to 6 (near-straight) with annotations — long, short, crest, don't cut. Driver and co-driver create notes together during recce the day before, in a language built between just the two of them.
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