Leaving aside the type of notes provided by the organizer (and that changes for each sector!), The test is a succession of sectors, which can each be of three kinds:
Connection: the time available to reach the end of the sector is more than enough to refuel or have a drink. You still have to be there on time.
Average: an arrival time is fixed, and it corresponds to a certain speed (45 km / h for example), but we are only timed at the end of the sector. In this kind of steps, we generally go a little faster to gain a little margin of safety in case. The navigator has every interest in writing down on a clearly visible piece of paper (certain roadmaps allow it) the ideal arrival time, because once in view of the CH (Time Control) station at the end of the sector, the pilot will obviously ask: "I go for it or I wait". Penalties are made by the minute (that is, if the ideal time is 11:10:15 a.m., there is no penalty from 11:10:05 a.m. until 11:10:59 a.m., and if you point at 11:12:55 a.m. you get 2 minutes of penalties.
Regularity (RT): here, it is not an average speed checked only at the end, but a constant speed that must be maintained throughout the sector (or part of the sector if indicated). It is already much more complicated, and the organizer will time the competitors in the greatest secrecy (often just after a turn) and will penalize each second ahead or behind. A special chapter is devoted to average tracking.
RT Jogularity version: regularity sector for which the organizer has prepared the transit times at all crossroads, which makes life easier for the navigator (no need for averaging tables!)
Here is a nice example during the 12h of Huy, the times are mentioned in the "Instructions" column. In theory, in a regularity sector, it is the navigator who should at each crossroads indicate to the pilot the ideal time to the nearest second. In practice, the novice navigator concentrates on the journey, and gives an order to accelerate or slow down at each kilometer.
CH: the end of the sector
The end of each sector is called CH (Hourly control), and is materialized by two panels 50 meters apart (approximately). Usually these panels represent a clock.
If we are in advance, we wait wisely BEFORE the first sign (On the side of the road, latecomers could come down without warning), because the commissioner will point the car from the moment it passes height of the first panel. We then enter the CH during the first seconds of the ideal minute.
Once in the hospital, we advance to the height of the commissioner, and we hand him the roadmap. He indicates the arrival time there, then immediately returns it. During this time, the browser resets its trip and the stopwatch to zero. The crew sets out again without delay, no time to check whether or not we have taken penalties, and in any case, it is too late.
It should be noted that at the end of each sector, the competitors leave without having to catch up if they had been penalized. This is only true for CH. On the other hand, the Regularity controls (constant speed) being secret, you have to catch up to point at zero
Little tip: imagine that the ideal time is in theory 11h10m15s, and therefore becomes 11h10m since we count by the minute. If you arrive at 11h10m50s, you have no penalty for this sector, but you will leave for the next one with 50 seconds delay since the organizer counts by the minute and therefore points you at the start at 11h10m. The must is therefore to reset the time to zero at the exact start of the ideal minute of arrival.
Source Frédéric Siva
