Spectrum Computing

Hi, back in the 80s how did they measure/express distances in rallies?
I wanted to make a Basic road rally game which displays info like time, speed and distance to next checkpoint.
But I'm struggling with imperial measures. Speed is being displayed in mph that's for sure but the rest is still vague.
How would you do it?
Did they use yds back then, how far were the checkpoints? I watched some rally VHS tapes on YT but got no idea.

From a UK perspective: rallying is typically in miles / miles per hour. Rally pace notes are generally read out in yards ( gear required, direction, distance in yards to next corner ). So miles and yards, generally speaking - if speaking in English.

p13z wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 5:34 pm From a UK perspective: rallying is typically in miles / miles per hour. Rally pace notes are generally read out in yards ( gear required, direction, distance in yards to next corner ). So miles and yards, generally speaking - if speaking in English.

Ok. I wanted to make this an 80s UK-style rally, short curvy countryside tracks, but I had a mixture of meters and miles.
Switching meters to yards is looking much better now.

If we're talking about a short race with checkpoints/waypoints every 1-3 minutes, say, where would you put the distance?
Assuming an avg speed of 50-70 mph I can place them somewhere between 1.0 and 2.5 miles, would that be right?
How did they handle a pit stop?

There wouldn't be pit-stops. The longest stop would be for a flat tyre early in a stage, in which case the driver and navigator would have to get out, jack the car up, change the wheel, get back in and finish the stage. Although if it's late in the stage they might choose to finish with the flat tyre and replace it later, hoping not to do too much damage to the wheel.

At the end of a stage there'd be a certain amount of time to prepare the car for the next stage that day, but this often includes actually driving it legally on public roads to the start of the next stage. So refuelling or replacing tyres is a minor consideration time-wise, compared to fixing up any damage to make it road-worthy and getting it from one place to another. In fact, the rules might state that you can't actually replace anything on the car between stages on a day, apart from one standard spare wheel. And fail to make it to the next stage start on time and you'd get disqualified from that stage and take a penalty, so a serious prang could rule you right out.

Ok, this is something to consider, thank you.

Love the sound of this, I think there is a surprising lack of rally games considering the golden age of rally was the 80's

Just some general ideas of stuff I think would be awesome, could include a stage progress bar so you can see how far through the stage you are at any point? Also should have an over head view of the car to show (bit like Battlecars overhead style) and detail damage or what tyre is flat (if it includes that level of detail)

Either way keen as to see the progress on this.