exact amount that the competitor is due to take to reach that clock en route. Thus, if they are exactly on time, the clock will show exactly the same time at every time control they visit, making it very easy to see whether they are ahead or behind, and if so by how much. In addition, since on most events cars are started at one-minute intervals, and the cars are numbered and started in sequence, the time shown on the clock will be their competition number if they are on time. To clarify this, imagine a notional car "0" which starts the event at time 00:00 at every point on the route, if they are on time, the clocks will always show 0:00:00. Likewise car 1 will see 0:01:00, car 2 sees 0:02:00 and so on. If Car 1 sees a time of 0:05:XX, they know instantly that they have lost at least four minutes. Incidentally, this is the origin of rally competition numbering skipping numbers 60–99, then continuing with 100, (1:00:00 on the clock) which corresponds to a due time of +1 hour. This is still occasionally seen, though it can be a problem for public relations, leading naturally but incorrectly to perceptions of there being "hundreds of cars" in a rally. Issues The original objective of targa timing was to speed delivery of rally results, and the rally paperwork set out the amount by which each control's clock was offset. This always remained the case on the Targa Rusticana, but other organisers soon realised that targa timing could be used to conceal the calculated average speed for a section, since the competitors have no way of knowing by how much each clock has been retarded. This in turn led to a further use of targa timing which in practice was its true advantage to organisers—it allowed them to, untraceably, set very high average speeds for competitive driving. This in turn led to the concept of a "target" or "bogey" time for a section, known only to the organisers—the upshot was that crews basically needed to drive as fast as possible to stay on time. The participants' time cards only showed the recorded targa time, and not the actual time taken, so it was not possible to use it as a permanent record of the speeds driven; no record was left that could incriminate anyone after the event. For