Special Tests

    Special tests are where the driver comes into his own. It's his chance to make a mark and win or lose the event. However the navigator need not be the proverbial sack of potatoes. Many cars are not designed with autotesting in mind and many drivers have memories like sieves and Mark Thatcher's sense of direction! Don't leave the tests completely up to the driver. Pay attention and remember exactly where you are on the test so that you can point him in the right direction if need be. Also you may be able to see parts of the car the driver cannot. So tell him if he's about to flatten a line of cones.

    It's also worth remembering that the test diagrams you will be supplied with can be misleading. They are generally ‘not to scale’ - so distances between various elements may be much longer or shorter than they appear on the diagram! Special tests, which use estate roads, can be particularly misleading, as not all of the test is usually visible from the start. As the ‘bogie’ time (the time on which penalties are based) for the test is set at a nominal 30mph average you can gauge its length/complexity by the bogie time i.e. a 60 second bogie time = a half mile long test!