Rally Pace Notes Speed Calculator

The Rally Pace Notes Speed Calculator turns a special stage distance and a stage time into the numbers a rally crew actually works with: the stage average speed in km/h and mph, a split card you can copy onto a time card, what a lost second is worth in metres of road, and — the part most speed calculators leave out — the rate the co-driver has to call pace notes to keep up with that speed.

How Stage Average Speed Works

A special stage is timed from a standing start to a flying finish, and the average speed is simply the stage length divided by that time. It is worth being clear about what the number is and is not: it is an average over everything, hairpins and junctions and all, so it lands far below the top speed the car sees on the fastest straight. A stage averaging 120 km/h will have the car well past 180 km/h in places and down at 40 km/h in a first-gear hairpin.

That last formula is the one crews underrate. Because time is inversely proportional to speed, the seconds an extra km/h buys you grow with stage length: on a 6 km stage at 80 km/h one km/h is worth about 3.3 seconds, but on a 30 km stage at 110 km/h the same one km/h is worth nearly 8.8 seconds. Long stages reward small, sustained gains; short stages reward not making a mistake.

Reading the Speed Bands

The gauge in the results places your average on a scale from 40 to 140 km/h. These bands are a rough guide to where different levels of rallying live, and they are about the road at least as much as the crew — a world-class driver on a tight club stage still averages club-stage speeds.

The Number Most Speed Calculators Miss: Note Density

Average speed on its own does not tell a crew whether a stage is hard. Two stages can both average 100 km/h while asking completely different things of the co-driver, because what limits a crew is not speed but the gap between one call and the next.

Here \( n_{km} \) is the note density — how many separate calls your notes contain per kilometre, counting corners, crests, cautions and distances as one call each. Open forest gravel usually runs five to seven a kilometre; a tight Alpine tarmac stage or a technical club stage can be double that. To measure your own, take one page of notes, count the calls on it, and divide by the distance that page covers.

The calculator reports both the call rate and the gap between calls, and judges the gap rather than the rate. Around three to four seconds is the comfortable working rhythm: enough time to speak a full call, let the driver act on it, and start the next without rushing. Below roughly two seconds a co-driver stops reading calls as separate items and begins linking them into single phrases, because there is simply no room for anything else.

Call lead: how far ahead you have to read

The other half of the co-driver's job is reading ahead. A call has to arrive before the corner is visible, which in practice means three to five seconds of road. The calculator converts your chosen lead time into a distance and, more usefully, into a number of notes — because that is what the co-driver's eyes have to do: be that many lines further down the page than the corner the car is currently in.

How to Use This Calculator

1. Choose what you are solving. Pick Stage average speed to turn a distance and a time into a speed, Target stage time to go the other way, or Find seconds to see what average speed a faster time needs.
2. Enter the stage distance. Enter the stage distance from the road book and choose kilometres or miles. Rally road books give stage length to two decimal places, so use the exact figure.
3. Enter the time. Enter the stage time as minutes and seconds such as 10:45, as hours minutes and seconds such as 1:02:15, or as a plain number of seconds.
4. Set the stage character and note density. Choose the stage character so the calculator starts from a sensible pace-note density, then adjust the notes per kilometre and the call lead time if you count your own.
5. Click Calculate Stage Speed. Click Calculate Stage Speed to get the average speed, the split table, the cost of lost seconds and the pace-note call rhythm.

Split Times and the Time Card

The split card divides the distance and the time into equal legs, so each marker shows the clock reading for a perfectly even run. Nobody drives an even stage, and that is exactly why the card is useful: it gives you a fixed reference to be up or down against, in the same way a target time on a road section does. Two markers is enough for a short stage, ten or twelve turns a long one into a proper reference sheet.

The same mode works for regularity sections and road sections, where the organiser prescribes an average speed rather than a stage time. Enter the section distance and the required average in Target stage time, and the split card becomes the time you should show at each intermediate point. Regularity averages are usually low — often 30 to 50 km/h — so expect the gauge to sit at the bottom of its scale.

What a Mistake Costs

Rally time is spent in whole seconds: a missed braking point, a stall on a hairpin, a spin. The cost table turns each of those into the amount of stage road it represents, which is the translation crews think in. At 100 km/h one second is 27.8 metres — roughly the length of a hairpin exit — and a thirty second spin is more than eight hundred metres of driving handed to the car behind.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you calculate rally stage average speed?

Divide the stage distance by the stage time. To get kilometres per hour directly, divide the distance in kilometres by the time in seconds and multiply by 3600. A 22.50 km stage covered in 10 minutes 45 seconds is 645 seconds, so 22.50 divided by 645 times 3600 gives 125.6 km/h. The important detail is that this is an average over the whole stage, hairpins included, so it is always far below the top speed the car actually reaches.

What is a good average speed for a rally stage?

It depends far more on the road than on the crew. A tight club stage on a farm track or a single venue rarely averages above 75 km/h, a national championship stage usually sits between 75 and 92 km/h, and continental championship gravel runs into the 90s and low 100s. World championship stages average roughly 108 to 124 km/h, and only the fastest open forest roads go beyond that. Comparing your average with a different stage tells you almost nothing, but comparing it with other crews on the same stage tells you everything.

How many pace notes per minute does a co-driver call?

Multiply the note density by the speed. Notes per minute equals notes per kilometre times the average speed in km/h divided by 60. At eight notes per kilometre and 100 km/h that is about 13 calls a minute, or one call every 4.5 seconds. On a tight tarmac stage at thirteen notes a kilometre and 80 km/h it rises to about 17 a minute, one call every 3.5 seconds. Below roughly two seconds between calls a co-driver stops reading separate notes and starts linking them into single phrases.

How far ahead should a co-driver read the pace notes?

The usual working figure is three to five seconds of road ahead of the car, because the driver needs the call before the corner is visible, not as it arrives. At 100 km/h the car covers 27.8 metres every second, so a four second lead is 111 metres of stage. This calculator converts your chosen lead time into both a distance and a number of notes, which is the more useful form: it tells the co-driver how many lines further down the page they need to be.

How much time does one km/h of average speed save?

More than most crews expect, and it grows with stage length. Because time equals distance divided by speed, one extra km/h of average saves the stage distance divided by speed, minus the same distance divided by speed plus one. On a 20 km stage at 100 km/h that is about 7.1 seconds. The mirror of that is what a mistake costs: at 100 km/h one lost second is 27.8 metres of stage road, and a thirty second spin is more than eight hundred metres of driving given away.

Do the split times assume a constant speed?

Yes, and that is the point of them. The split table divides the distance and the time evenly, so each marker shows where you would be on the clock if you held exactly the target average all the way through. Real stages are never even, because a slow technical opening section and a fast run to the finish will sit either side of the line. Use the splits as a reference to compare against rather than as a prediction, which is exactly how a target time on a time card is used.

Accuracy and Limits

The speed, pace, split and mistake-cost figures are exact arithmetic on the distance and time you enter — there is no modelling in them, so they are as accurate as your inputs. The pace-note figures are exact too, but they rest on one estimate: your note density. The stage-character presets are reasonable starting values, not measurements of your own notes, and doubling the density doubles the call rate. If the call rate matters to you, count a page of your own notes rather than trusting the preset. Finally, the speed bands describe typical rallying and are a frame of reference, not a rule — an unusual stage can sit outside them and still be entirely genuine.