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I am curious if any rally organisers provide comprehensive GPS files to rally competitors. I have not seen it so far, but I just received them for the next Australian Rally Championship round. The organisers emailed me .gpx and .kml files containing route info.
I thought it was a great idea, it makes pre-rally preparation a lot easier. Have you seen this on any other rallies, particularly WRC rounds?
Raz
MAXYrally
The Pafos International Rally (MERC and Cyprus rally championship) provided something like this. I am not a competitor, just spectating, but the .kml file opened with google earth proved to be very healpful to find spectating spots and access points. They aslo provided live tracking of the competitors as the rally progressed. I really wanted to see something similar for the WRC rounds. I think it is easy for them to achieve, since regional rallies offer this service.
This is the link to the .kml file and have a look
Pafos International Rally 2011
Yes, that's exactly the type of maps that we got but not the live tracking yet. I think they only sent the maps to the competitors, didn't publish them for spectators. It is a great idea, but maybe the WRC regulations don't allow it? I couldn't find anything in particular, but I'm no expert.
I didn't know that Pafos got an international rally! When I was in Cyprus (2000-2004) the international rally was closer to Limassol. Nice roads near Pafos though, I spent a bit of time on a motorbike around there!
This rally was known in recent years as Troodos Rally and it was always part of MERC, this year it is just renamed as Pafos rally since most of stages are based around Pafos forests. Troodos Rally was based in Nicosia, and it begun running when the Cyprus Rally was added in the WRC calendar. But the Cyprus Rally, which is the last round of IRC and also in the MERC championship is still based in Limassol.
I can't see any reason why not to provide such services, at least it is just for the sake of following better the rally online. We get the splits, but you just have to listen to rally radio for Becs giving info of the GPS. Why can't they provide it to everybody. The only logical explanation, is that this service is provided by sporttraxx, and North One cannot offer such a thing. If you look at their portofolio of events Portfolio they provide timing for all MERC round abut also for the Jordan rally when it was WRC round. Maybe the system is expensive to run? Anyone with any inside info?
I've seen GPS points used at US events to help workers find control locations and marshal positions. It's a nice addition to the route books when there's a lot of snow that can cover the small flags we usually use. For competitors - does the navigator need another thing to worry about if they're already nose deep in the route book?
I'd love to see some kind of live tracking, or even live time reporting at a stage finish.