Road rallying can be done in a 'bog' standard car. Therefore provided the car is sound, you need only ensure that it is neat and tidy with everything stowed properly. At the start of each event your car will be scrutineered. Primarily this is to ensure the safety of the car. Scrutineers are impressed by presentation and take a dim view of heavy lumps of metal e.g. spare wheels, tool kits etc. being allowed unrestrained mobility within the car! In general any modifications which increase your safety are acceptable e.g. roll cages, better seats and harnesses, fire extinguishers and safety cut-outs. Items, which are also generally considered essential, are a Hazard warning triangle and a first aid kit.

If you have decided to 'prepare' a car for events, you should become intimately acquainted with the technical regulations in the Blue book if you wish to avoid disappointment at scrutineering. This only really applies when you want to go Stage Rallying as a whole host of additional safety regulations apply. A long chat with an experienced competitor is also a good idea. Perhaps the oldest cliché in motorsport is that ‘to finish first, first you must finish’ - therefore think about reliability before performance in the first instance.

Lets get things straight from the start, no matter what the driver thinks, rally cars are controlled from the left hand seat (unless your car is from some foreign enclave!) Your driver may have been pipped for the ''works' drive by Roger Clark or Timo Makinen but neither of them would have won anything without a Tony Mason or Henry Liddon. YOU are the boss and as such your office should reflect this! So make sure that you are comfortable and that you can organise your equipment where you can get at it quickly. If the car is being 'prepared' get your side of the car sorted to suit you. You will learn by experience what you need, but a good nose around other cars might give you some ideas. In general the minimum equipment you will need will be some form of map light - though even this may be unnecessary for daytime events and some peripatetic navigators of my acquaintance incorporate this on their map boards. For Historic events some form of trip meter is essential - the one fitted to car will do initially (so tell the driver to reconnect it and blow the limited mileage insurance!) As you get more advanced you may want to move unto specialised equipment such as HALDA Tripmasters and Speedpilots. These are simply more accurate instruments with some reset and calibration features. Often this equipment is ludicrously expensive so alternative cheaper 'electronic' equipment will generally be acceptable for most events providing it only does distance measuring functions. You can obtain such equipment from Brantz, Terratrip and Autostorica.

The navigator's role is to keep the car heading in the right direction, on time and to inform the driver of any upcoming features he needs to be aware of. We have all sat in the back seat of some lunatic's car, hurtling down some country lane, whilst the chap in the left hand seat witters some incomprehensible stream of gibberish which comes to an abrupt halt as the world goes spinning sideways and upside down. At which point we rewind the video to look at it all again! Pace notes are an extreme form of the navigator's art and we are a long way from that here. However keeping the driver informed is still important, as he won't thank you for not telling him about the left-hand bend into hump back bridge that has just wiped the exhaust off.... It's also your job to tell him about Quiet Zones, or standing Give Ways etc. If you don't and the driver continues in ignorance (their usual state anyway), it will be your fault if you pick up penalties or at worst are excluded from the event. Therefore try to concentrate, stay calm and organised, don't be rushed into making snap decisions because if you get agitated so will the driver and a red mist in the right hand seat can be entertaining but is usually a short-lived pleasure (?)

The tools you will need are relatively few but a little preparation goes a long way.

Maps: Having obtained the correct maps for the event (identified by the edition number, version and date of issue), it is useful to spend a little time beforehand applying some judicious highlighting to it. Fluorescent highlighters are just the job for highlighting spot heights (printed in black adjacent to spots on the roads) and other map features. The grid square numbers (printed in pale blue) can be overwritten with a heavy black pen (use waterproof ink - soggy maps are bad enough without abstract art designs all over them). These numbers are often used in the navigation for an event and being able to locate them easily is a distinct advantage. Map marking used to be quite an art form in years gone by when experienced navigators would annotate their maps with additional information to about particular features such as, bends and junctions which were not as map, yumps, dips etc. When rallies relied principally on using ‘white’ roads i.e. unclassified, knowing which ‘whites’ were ‘goers’ and under what conditions - i.e. ‘downhill only’ or ‘not if wet’- was a distinct advantage.

Nowadays it is ILLEGAL (under MSA regulations) to add information to your maps, other than that given to you by the organisers. You can only highlight information already on it. Some events will check your maps prior to and during the event, to ensure that you are complying with this regulation.

Romers:- A romer, like the one illustrated, is your basic means of putting some parts of the route on the map. Its main function is to allow you to plot map references accurately. But more of that anon. You can usually buy these at camping and outdoor leisure pursuit centres, or from specialised dealers like Demon Tweeks, Basic Equipment or Rally Navigation Services.

Map board: In order to rest your map on! A sturdy piece of cardboard is recommended as it will fold up in case of an accident but a largish clipboard will do.

Clip Board: You will please every marshal enroute if your time cards are firmly attached to a clipboard. It makes writing times and signatures so much easier.

Pencils etc.: A selection of soft pencils (2B or softer), rubber, sharpener, pens etc.

Watches: One watch/stopwatch will suffice but two is ideal, usually one set to time of day (normally BBC CEEFAX time), one for use as a stopwatch. Digital ones are more accurate and easier to use - Mechanical watches add period flavour to the car.

Sweeties: Always a good idea for keeping drivers and marshals happy!

Travel Sickness Pills: Definitely a good idea if you're remotely prone to travel sickness and it's not your car!

Sick Bags: AS ABOVE

A sense of humour: Vital - don't leave home without it.

There are loads of other bits and pieces that may or may not be useful. Most navigators end up lugging around a holdall containing all sorts of goodies which they never use but thought it was a good idea to have just in case. Some drivers are the same, which is why some cars are really competitive service barges.