Rally Terms, Explained

Every sport has its jargon; rallying has more than most. Here's the plain-English version of the terms you'll hear at an Australian rally — written by a crew that's still fairly new to hearing them too.

Special stage (SS)

A closed section of road where the rally is timed flat-out. Stages are numbered (SS1, SS2…) and the car with the lowest total time across all stages wins.

Liaison / transport stage

The untimed public-road sections between special stages, driven at legal road speeds. You still have to hit time controls, so you can lose a rally on liaison paperwork.

Pace notes

A corner-by-corner script of the stage read aloud by the co-driver a few seconds ahead of the car. We wrote our first set at Narooma — here's how pace notes actually work.

Blind rally

A rally run without pace notes or recce. You get a roadbook to keep you on the right roads; beyond that you drive to what you can see. Most Australian club rallies (Mitta, Ada River, the Heartland) run blind.

Roadbook / route chart

The navigation document for a blind rally: tulip diagrams and cumulative distances that keep the crew on the correct route. Navigating one accurately at speed is a skill in itself.

Tulip diagram

The simple ball-and-arrow junction drawings used in roadbooks — the ball marks where you enter the junction, the arrow where you exit.

Recce (reconnaissance)

Slow, speed-limited pre-event passes over the stages, during which crews write and refine pace notes. Only some events (like ARC rounds) include a recce.

Co-driver / navigator

The other half of the crew: reads pace notes or the roadbook, manages the time cards, and keeps the whole operation on schedule. The cheapest way into rallying.

Service park

The designated area where the car can be worked on between stages, within a strict time allowance. Everything else must be fixed on the roadside — or driven around.

Parc fermé

French for "closed park" — a controlled area where cars are held and cannot be touched, typically overnight or before the start.

Time control (TC)

A checkpoint where the crew must report at their scheduled minute. Early or late both cost you — hence co-drivers obsessing over the time card maths.

Seeding

The start order. Fast crews run first and sweep the loose gravel off the racing line — which is why running position matters on a dry gravel rally.

Sweep (road sweeping)

The loose top layer of gravel that early cars clear away. Later runners inherit a cleaner line — one of the few advantages of not being fast yet.

Stage time / stage position

Your elapsed time for one stage, and where it ranked. We publish ours for every event — see any event hub for the full tables.

Outright vs class results

Outright is the overall finishing order; class results rank you against similar machinery (we run the classic class in a 1995 Impreza wagon against modern AWD turbo cars outright).

Superspecial / spectator stage

A short showpiece stage built for spectating — think stadium layouts or city sprints — usually worth little time but lots of photos.

Shakedown

A pre-event test on a representative piece of road: last chance to find a problem while you can still fix it comfortably.

Rally0 / 000 / 00 / 0 cars

The official course cars that sweep each stage ahead of the first competitor, confirming the road is clear, closed and ready.

DNF / DNS

Did Not Finish / Did Not Start. On rough events like Mitta 2026, more than half the field can DNF — sometimes finishing at all is the result.

Group N / classic / P5 classes

Eligibility categories grouping cars by era and modification level. Our GF8 Impreza runs in classic-era classes (P5 at ARC level) against its contemporaries.

MCA / rally licence

The Motorsport Australia licence you need to compete (restructured in 2025 — a dedicated Rally Licence, plus single-event options), along with membership of an affiliated car club.

Logbook

The car’s competition passport: issued after first scrutineering and stamped through its life. No logbook, no start.

Scrutineering

The pre-event inspection of the car and your safety gear (helmets, suits, harnesses, cage). Pass, and you get to race.

ARC / NSWRC / VRC / SARC / AMSAG / ECCRS

The alphabet soup of Australian rallying: the national championship (ARC), state championships (NSWRC, VRC, SARC), the AMSAG Southern Cross club series, and the East Coast Classic Rally Series for older cars. We've raced most of them — see the season.