Keeping a checksheet Keeping track of the cars for Control One of the reasons radio operators are out there is so Control can call them to help him locate cars that are not where they should be. Control and the Event Safety Officer have given great thought to your placing. They know the overall plan, you don't. They know where spaces can be left without compromising safety, you don't. So go to your allocated post and never, ever, move from your position without first asking (NOT telling!) Control. If there is good reason, which occasionally happens, then Control will tell you which alternative post to man. When a car is lost Control needs to know where it was last seen and between which cars. Your checksheet can be a piece of blank paper with nothing on it but your scribble, or it can be a purpose printed effort with spaces for everything you could possibly need to record. It does not matter. What  does  matter is that at any given time you should be able to answer the question "Has it passed you?" with either "Negative" or the full monty - "It was the 15th car out of 21 past me, between cars so-and-so and so-and-so". That's why you are there, so keep a record of everything that goes by from when the first course car goes into stage. Put course cars and official cars away from the list of competitors' cars - they will only confuse the competitor issue. Remember the first competitor car past you might not necessarily be the first one into stage, if it isn't and you have had no news of it from earlier in the stage, tell Control the second has arrived but not the first. That's when you find if everyone else has been keeping a decent checksheet! Use a space on your checksheet for noting cars that are stuck in stage and where they are, cars that will not appear for any other reason and for any other notes that will help you follow the course of the rally. On some rallies, usually north of the border, you will find writing down the (BBC) time each car went past you a useful piece of info to have when Control asks you for it, which Controls there often do! I remember a Scottish Hillrally on top of a mountain at 6 in the morning, thick fog which was simply cloud so low it covered most of the mountain. The only reason we managed to find our post was because Ray has set out the stage! The first course car went by, feeling his way at a death-defying speed of 2-3 mph. I looked at the situation while Ray was walking the route with him and realised that he could so easily become totally lost, visibility was all of 2 yards! Because of the weather I noted the time the course car came out of the loop we were manning. There followed great discussion over the air about whether this stage would run and I gave the course car no further thought as I clung to the farmer's assertion that the cloud would rise by 10am and everything would be great. It seemed a bit optomistic to me! Then, suddenly Control was looking for the Course Car, it had not come out of stage, where is it? We were just three posts from the end of the stage, had he got lost? I looked at the checksheet and was able to tell Control the exact time the course car had set off from our junction. The fact that over three quarters of an hour had gone by was a little disconcerting! However, all turned out well, as Control was arranging a search party the course car appeared, WD, asking us which was the quickest way off this mountain as they were not going any further after spending ages getting the Clerk of the Course unbedded from a mud hole! So, jotting down the approximate time a car goes by can be extremely useful, north or south of the border. If you would like to download a checksheet we have three styles on offer: 1. A portrait bingo card type where car numbers are in a number square. You write down the car numbers in the right side as they pass and cross off their numbers in a square on the left. Opens in Word. (Thanks to Derek Machin, Silk 8.) The file is      rcs1.doc - 84Kb 2. A landscape version where you fill in the numbers down the squares and cross off the number in the first column. This is the one I use because I can instantly say (if I have written numbers 3,5,7 opposite 1,2 and 3) that car number 5 was the second car past between cars 3 & 5. And the total of cars is always the number by the last car number I wrote down. It opens in Excel - I'm not as good as Derek doing tables in Word! The file is     rcs2.xls - 29Kb 3. Same as 2 but portrait version. Cars are different shapes (such words of wisdom!) and some fit portrait better than landscape - you choose. In fact, I use this if I sit in the driver's seat because it fits better. All I need is to learn to write with my left hand, it's far easier when you are sitting that side of the car! The file is     rcs3.xls - 19Kb NOTE: Use the back button on your browser after you have saved the file if you want to stay connected.   Above all, whatever your checksheet starts off as, it must be able to fully answer the question "Have you seen car....?"