Pace notes
Every symbol, and how notes chain together
On paper a set of pace notes looks like someone sat on a keyboard. 6R+ 120 ! Cr 8L>6 is a real line from a real stage, and every character in it is doing a job. Here is what each mark means — and more usefully, how they join up, because a stage is a chain rather than a list.
That line, decoded
6R+ 120 ! Cr 8L>6
A fast right, a shade quicker than a plain 6. Then 120 metres. Then a wake-up caution into a blind crest. Then a corner at the top of the scale that tightens as you go through it. One breath from the co-driver, and the driver now knows the next quarter kilometre.
That example is in the New Zealand national system, which runs 1 to 8 rather than our 1 to 6 — see how the systems differ.
Linking corners together
This is the part people mean when they ask how notes "go together". A stage is not a list of separate corners, it is a chain, and these are the joints. A linked corner is always longer than the same corner on its own, which is why the link matters as much as the grade.
- into
- The next corner arrives with no usable straight, so your line through the first one has to already allow for the second. "4 left into 3 right" means you cannot square off the left and then deal with the right — you compromise the first to set up the second.
- >
- Tightens, or closes. The corner runs straight on into a slower one in the same direction. Some systems spell out how much slower when the drop is large: "6 left >5−" is shorthand for a 6 left running into a 5 minus.
- <
- Opens. Same idea in reverse — the corner unwinds into something faster, so you can get on the power earlier than the entry suggests.
- <>
- Opens then tightens. A corner that lets go and then takes it back. The sting is that the final section can be slower than the entry, which is exactly the shape that catches people out.
- late
- Late apex. The fast first part of the corner has been left out of the note deliberately, because what decides your exit is the slow part at the end.
- /
- Over. Two things overlapping rather than following each other — "4 left / crest" is a crest that starts before the corner has finished, so the car goes light while it is still turning.
How long it holds
A grade tells you the angle. It does not tell you how long you are in it, and a long medium corner and a short one are different jobs. Duration is called after the corner, never before.
- short
- Same angle, less of it. Worth knowing that a short corner can be slower than the normal one of the same grade, because it all happens at once.
- (nothing)
- Normal duration for that grade. Most corners say nothing, which is the point — you only spend words on the exceptions.
- lg
- Long. Holds for longer than the grade implies.
- Vlg
- Very long.
- Xlg
- Extra long. Used in the US system where a corner goes on well past anything the grade would suggest.
Crests, jumps and cautions
Everything that is not a corner. Crests matter because the car goes light exactly when you least want it to, and cautions matter because they are the only part of the note that is purely about not crashing.
- smCr
- Small crest. You usually still see the road beyond it.
- Cr
- Crest. You usually do not see the road beyond it — which is the whole reason the note exists.
- Jmp
- Jump. The car will leave the ground.
- Bmp
- Bump. Enough to move the car, not enough to launch it.
- !
- The first level of caution — and the one that proves systems disagree.In the New Zealand system "!" is a mild wake-up, with "!!" easy caution and "!!!" danger. In the British system "!" already means caution, "!!" danger and "!!!" big danger. Same mark, different starting point.
- !! / !!!
- Escalating severity. Wherever you are, three of them means the thing that will end your rally.
The road itself
Notes also carry what the road is doing and what is beside it, because a corner on loose gravel with a rock on the inside is not the same corner.
- ][
- Bridge, or a cattle grid. Both narrow, both unforgiving, both usually taken straight.
- Jct
- A junction you pass straight through.
- in jct
- A junction where you turn. The distance from the stage start is normally printed under the note, so a lost co-driver has something to find their place with.
- s.i.
- Stone inside. There is something on the inside of the corner that will hurt the car — the written form of "don’t cut".
- Kinks
- A straight with corners in it too slight to grade individually. Read as one word rather than five notes.
- Tyt
- Tight or narrow. Used in the British system.
- Grvl
- Gravel — a surface change worth knowing about mid-stage.
Distance between things
Numbers on their own in a note are distances, not grades. How they are rounded says a lot about the system: precision costs syllables, and syllables cost time.
- (no number)
- The next thing follows almost immediately — under about 40 yards in the US system, enough for a small change of line and no more.
- 50, 100, 150
- Rounded distances. The US system rounds to fifty-yard steps in the middle range; New Zealand uses 10, 20, 30, 50, 70, 100.
- Odd vs even
- The British system uses even numbers up to 100 and odd numbers above it — 130, 150, 170 — so the shape of the number itself tells you roughly how far out you are.
One habit worth knowing
A line drawn under a run of symbols means read them together, quickly, as one thing. It is how a co-driver flags a combination that only makes sense delivered as a block — and how they tell themselves, three months later at seven in the morning, that this bit is not to be read at a comfortable pace.
Notation here is checked against the published official abbreviation sets for the United States, New Zealand and British championships, collected by Jemba, alongside what we call in our own car.