Average Speed

average speed

excerpt from the 2009 rulebook:

4.2 Average Speed Calculation

The Nevada Rally Course Designers travel each Stage multiple times during the development of The Nevada Rally. By timing a number of these trips a range of realistic elapsed times are collected. These times and the distance traveled are used to determine the Average Speed required for each course Stage.


and:

4.3.3 Course Points

Teams will be given the average speed for each stage of the course and should try to maintain this average. The Official Speed Average for each stage includes time to hunt for Caches.

• For every minute a team is late to a Checkpoint or the Finish Line, one point will be deducted from the team’s score.

• For every minute a team is early to a Checkpoint or the Finish Line, two points will be deducted from the team’s score.

• A Team that takes an alternate route around a section of the course labeled Extreme will receive a 30-minute late penalty (30-points) for every Extreme section avoided.
  

don’t let yourself get too hung up on staying with the speed averages; after all: your team will only lose one-point for every minute that you are late arriving at the end of a stage; you will, however, lose two-points for every minute that you are early. so, don’t get heavy footed.

the best way for a driver to keep on-time is to use common sense while on-course; if you are working on a speed average of 12 mph, and you are presently driving in a rock field, we were not driving at that speed when we established the speed average in this particular section of the course; rather a much more reasonable speed of about 1, or 2 mph; maybe much slower.

the same thing goes for those dirt-highways out there were 45 mph is a more appropriate speed.

i thoroughly believe that any driver who drives at a reasonable speed for the entire length of the course – slow when necessary and at a sensible speed on dirt-highways – you won’t need to worry about the average speed function on your gps’s trip computer.

after the first 15 miles of the nevada rally, the speed average your trip computer should display (i’m guessing here, since we’ve not checked exact averages yet) something in the area of 25 mph. that should be an indication, if the speed average for that stage is 11 mph, that you’ll be traveling a slower overall speed during the ensuing miles.

remember: the official speed average includes time allotted for finding caches placed along the route.

if you’re going to use your trip computer (not mandatory, but useful), you’ll want to have it set to “overall average speed”. this way it will keep track of the time when you are pulled over, deciding if you need to make a right turn or continuing on the road you’re presently traveling, and while you’re out hunting caches.

the trip computer, however, will do you no good if you leave the course by making a wrong turn since your mileage will now be greater than the actual mileage for that particular stage.

trip computer tips

• if you are going to keep track of your team’s speed averages, make sure that you have your gps’s trip computer in a mode that will allow you to reset it the instant that the timer at the beginning of each stage says “go!” this goes for adventure cache stages that require the team to walk.
• don’t let your trip computer be your speedometer! use it just to keep yourself apprised of your present average.
• don’t let yourself be intimidated by the trip computer. if it seems too much for you and serves only to confuse you: don’t even use it.
  

a team that is going to be satisfied with finishing the rally by finding all of the caches, and placing as high as they can, without stressing about it, might want to blow-off their trip computers and just wing it. that’s the way we did it when we set the speed average.

those teams, however, that have come for the competition will want to use it, but only as a rough-guide, not an exact-directive.

remember: if you’re not having fun, you are doing it wrong!