The Other Side of the Cockpit 

Let Me Introduce Myself

I am Hayley Henderson, Co-driver of the Brosis Motorsport Rally Team. I grew up in Grantham in a house and family full of Rally fanatics. As a young girl I trained as a ballet dancer and went away to the Royal Ballet School at the age of eleven. I moved schools at the age of fourteen and completed my training at Elmhurst Ballet School in Surrey. Despite my love for dancing, the love of motorsport and rallying in particular seemed to be in my genes. I have very fond memories of riding on my brothers go-kart aged about 4, sat in front of him clinging on for dear life as we tour up and down the little road outside our house, and I was the only girl at school who had a pin board full of WRC rally car pictures instead of the usual posters of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, what you would normally expect young girls to have. At the age of fifteen, to my delight my brother joined the Grantham motor club and my Dad built him a replica rally mini road car. We enjoyed many hours travelling around the Lincolnshire countryside together imagining and dreaming of one day rallying competitively. My Dad’s love for rallying and both mine and my brothers passion for the sport inspired and motivated him to build a rally mini for my brother to start competing in. I enjoyed and never missed a chance to go along and support them in the service area.  

When I turned 17 my Dad and brother asked me if I’d like to have a go at co-driving and I jumped at the chance. I have never looked back since! I had learnt how to map read at a very young age and learnt and gained invaluable advice from my Dad, a very experienced co-driver himself. Both Simon and I learnt and gained experience together and our results were very impressive, we started to surprise the competition with our speed and results and in 1998 decided we were ready to compete in the national tarmac championship. Our dad had developed the mini over the years and we now all felt we had a team and car that was capable of beating the more modern machinery and we could win our class. We did however know that we still had a lot to learn. We had never used pace notes before and the rallies in the championship were multi venue events sometimes needing a chase car and service crew. It would stretch not only us in the car, competing against tougher competition, but the entire team. We embraced the challenge we’d set ourselves and in 1999 we achieved our goal and became national tarmac champions of class B9! 

In 2001 we decided to compete in a one make championship rallying a 1400 puma kit car and sadly we sold our little mini. Unfortunately the budget for this championship proved to be too much and we were unable to continue competing for several seasons after this. During this break my Dad developed a new superior mini with an innovative suspension and other major alterations to improve the handling of the car. My brother started competing again however I was unable to join him due to family commitments until now! In 2008 the Brosis Motorsport team is reunited keeping the legend alive in the BTRDA National Tarmac Championship with the original winning formula, Simon at the wheel and myself on the other side of the cockpit.  

We have just competed in the first event of the championship and my aim is to give you an insight into what exactly it is like to sit alongside Simon on the stages and what else is involved in being a co-driver.

Preparation    

A co-drivers work starts long before the drivers! As the co-driver it is your job to co-ordinate the entire team leading up to and during the event. That begins with arranging accommodation for the team for the event. I then start to think about the logistics of the event and prepare a rally itinerary for the team. This will let all members of the team know where they need to be at what time, where the rest of the team are at that time and also gives them all other information they may need, such as rally officials contact numbers and team members contact numbers. All scrutineering and signing on instructions are included and specific event requirements such as unloading areas, service van identification and recce information. I then prepare information and schedules for the actual event itself. This comes in the form of a Service Schedule. This document instructs the service crew where each service area is, how many road and special stage miles are included in each leg of the rally and consequently the fuel requirements for each leg. Also included are any specific changes or checks needed at each service, such as any tyre changes we know we will need, tyre pressures, oil and water checks and Spot lights to be fitted if required. This sechdule is the most important bit of information I need to prepare for the service crew and it is crucial that I do not get it wrong!  Once this has been prepared the only information left to prepare is the most important information of the entire event, the pace notes! A full description of the special stages, this will enable Simon to visualise accurately the road ahead.  He will be able to drive as though he can see every aspect of the road, see over every blind crest and judge perfectly when he needs to break and just how much speed he can carry through each corner. In order to prepare the pace notes I firstly look at the stage plans that I will have received in the final instructions and then look at pace notes from previous years events to see if we already have notes written for each stage. I then piece the stages together identifying any areas we need to write notes for in the recce.  This is a very long and time consuming task but it cannot and must not be rushed as it is such crucial information. Finally I send all information out to the team with a motivated email and get all maps needed for the event. Sorted we’re ready to go, Im excited, the team’s buzzin, lets bring it on!!! 

Recce 

The recce gives Simon and I a chance to drive through all the special stages in a slow and controlled manner, max speed 30mph, to let us check our pace notes are correct, make alterations, add any information, such as road surface conditions, and to write any additional notes needed for the event. We normally have two runs through each stage. It also gives me the chance to read through the notes as they are driven and make any notes that will help me call them just at the right time for Simon. Using previous years notes is extremely useful as each time we do the event we improve the notes which ultimately only makes us quicker. 

Scrutineering             

Prior to scrutineering the car must firstly pass a noise check. We are given a process card and we then move on to scrutineering. This is where the rally car is inspected for safety and checked that it complies with MSA, Event and Championship regulations. Safety overalls, helmets, the rally car log book and MOT certificate are also checked. 

Documentation          

Once we have passed scrutineering we go to documentation to sign on. We need our process card, MSA licences and insurance certificates for this. Once signed on for the event and for our championship we are issued with the time cards for the event. The last thing to do before the event begins is check notice boards for any amendments, check my watch and rally clock are synchronised to rally time and check our official start time at MC1 (Main Time Control 1). 

Rally Day                  

This is it, the day all the preparation has been for!  It is always an early start and the whole team is up early ready and rearing to go, excited, enthusiastic, motivated and positive. We drive up to the pre-start area, usually the service area, and get set up for the day. Simon prepares himself mentally, the service crew prepare the car and I prepare all the paperwork. I get the road book, time cards and pace notes ready. Turn on the terra trip in the car, this is used to navigate our way through the road book following tulip diagrams from the end of one stage to the next or to service. I also turn on the intercom and power to the in car camera. Once I’m happy with everything I have a final check with the service crew that they have all the information they need, they have fuelled up the car, checked tyre pressures and oil and they know roughly when we will return to service. I then give Simon the nod that we’re ready to go, we both climb in, belt up and set off for MC1.

At all time controls it is very important to get the time that you are due, to avoid getting time penalties. If you are going to get it wrong it is better to book in late rather than early because you get penalised less that way. The rules are that you can enter the control up to one minute before your due time but if you enter before this they will give you the minute after you entered the control not the time you want. This is the reason why it is so important that my watches and clock are synchronised to rally time. Following the time control at the start of the stage you move forward to the stage start control where you are given your stage start time. I put the road book and time card away and make sure the pace notes are ready, turn on the in car camera and get ready to count Simon away. The stage is then started by electronic lights, they look like traffic lights. The red light comes on at 15 seconds to go, amber at 10 seconds then five little lights that make up the amber light go off one at a time, five four three two one GO.  

The stage starts, Simon always does a good job getting the car away, as rally cars can be a bit tricky in that department and I start calling the notes. The key to calling the notes is to get the timing right and don’t rush them. Another thing that is crucial to calling them well, is to forget about trying to watch the stage. You are just a passenger let the driver deal with the driving, that’s what they’re there for! Simon needs the information in enough time to know how fast he can go but not too much so it doesn’t register. I feel I have an advantage on lots of other co-drivers because I know my brother so well I can tell merely by the expression on his face if he’s listening to me and if he’s understood what I’ve said. It is vital that Simon trusts me 100% and knows that I know where we are in the notes. It must take a lot of trust to enter a crest absolutely flat out at over 120mph that you can’t see over and trust the person sat next to you that there is only a Left one the other side, especially when the next one called is a crest left five. What if I got mixed up and called the wrong one?? Disaster… I respect him for that, Simon is very good at trusting what is said. Another thing that makes calling the notes tricky is the fact that the pace at which you read them alters throughout the stage. You need to judge how quickly and when to call the next notes. Simon needs all the information leading up to a corner but also needs to know what follows it so that he knows what speed to carry through and consequently how late he can leave his braking. For example 150 L1 50 R9 the left one can carry much more speed through then if the notes read 150 L1.R9 because this time a right nine follows the left one immediately. This means that Simon needs the R9 call sooner than in the first case.  

The majority of the stage, certainly the twisty bits I just don’t see at all, I’m engrossed in the notes, this could make it easy to get lost on the notes, but the way I keep the pace and place right in the notes is by feeling what we go through. I don’t get thrown about in the car because I know what’s coming up. Strangely enough I can’t and never have been able to read a book or newspaper whilst being a passenger in a car because it makes me feel unwell, but I don’t have this problem at all when rallying because I know what’s coming and it is as though I’m watching everything. Sometimes Simon will comment after the stage finish at something he had seen on stage and more often than not I have not seen it. 

So we work our way through the notes until we come to the flying finish and drive up to the stop board. Here we collect our finish time on our time card. I then need the road book and clear the trip to set off to the next control. I also need to work out our due time into the next control. This is worked out (when the rally is on target timing) by adding the number of minutes given for the road time to the hours and minutes of the stage finish time. For example if our finish time is 13.42.41 and the road section is 5 minutes long our due time in is 13.47. We must not enter the control before 13.46 to get the time that we want. Approaching the time control I look for the Yellow Time Control board like a hawk so that we don’t go sailing into the control early. Simon must get fed up of hearing me say “don’t go in yet!”

We follow the road book and pace notes until they take us back to service where the service crew will be waiting eagerly to hear how we got on, if there were any problems and to get the car ready for the next leg of the rally. They already know how long we have for service from the service schedule I had given them before the rally started.  For Simon and I its jump out, have a stretch, go to the loo, have a drink and prepare to go again. There’s never very long in service and then we go to do the next leg of the rally. 

The final leg of the rally normally takes us back to rally HQ where we finish at the final Main Control. Then that’s it! My job is done, over to the service crew to put the car on the trailer and then the entire team go off to the awards presentation. If everything’s gone to plan to collect our trophy!

Click here to view the 2008 championship rounds