Made it into this month's Roundel

[Ferdinand]

Will you be at Targa Newfoundland again this year Lee?

The Targa 2008 TV production will be aired on TSN at 11:30 am Eastern on Feb 8th.

Previous years' coverage, 2007 & 2006, can be downloaded from here.

I navigated in the Touring Class for my brother in 2004 in his 69 Porsche 911S.


I'm entering again this year, with my son navigating, driving our 86 325. We're really looking forward to it!

[CleanAzzE30z]

Poopitty scoopitty!!! Hell yeah!



Mariano

[kishg]

I'm entering again this year, with my son navigating, driving our 86 325. We're really looking forward to it!

awesome.. you better hire lee as crew :) nj chapter members ross karlin and david mcintyre participate regularly in their dakar yellow e36 m3.

[Ferdinand]

nj chapter members ross karlin and david mcintyre participate regularly in their dakar yellow e36 m3.

Yes they were there in 2004, same year as us. They did really well, finishing 2nd in their class that year.

Targa Nfld is a really tough event, and unlike any other North American rally event. It's not an outright race to see who can complete each stage the quickest.

There are many different classes depending on vehicle age, engine sizes, modifications, etc. For every competitive stage, each class has a target time within which to complete the stage. You collect penalties if you're slower than that reaching the finish. There is also a maximum speed limit, so if you reach the finish too early they'll know you've exceeded the max limit and assign penalties accordingly.

The objective is to reach the finish line as close as possible to the target time. If you easily blow through the finish with a huge margin, the organizers will jack up the target speeds the next day, making it tougher and tougher until nobody manages to achieve their targets anymore. There's a lot of strategy involved.

Each of the different Targa classes require full rollcages, driving suits, etc. The slower Touring classes however can be done in any car, no rollcage required. Although the Touring class is much slower, in many ways it's more difficult because not only do we have to reach the finish line at the right time, but we have to be exactly on schedule all the time everywhere within the stage too.

Let's say one stage has an easy wide open section, then a tight twisty in-town section, followed by another wide open section after that to the finish. The Targa classes can go real fast on the open stuff to build a time cushion, knowing they'll be slow in the twisty bits, then open it up again to dash to the finish on the next easy section to make their correct finish time at the end of the stage.

In the Touring class we would have a specified Average Speed target for the open sections, and maybe a different Average Speed specified for the twisty bit in the middle. We have to go exactly that speed all the time, arriving neither early or late at several hidden checkpoints along the way.

That's really quite difficult because you have to slow down for tight corners, then speed up on any straights to make up the time again, but not too much or too little otherwise you fall off the schedule. So it's not only a matter of reaching the finish line exactly on schedule, but you also have to be on schedule at every point along the route.

At the start of the week they allow a generous margin of plus or minus 30 seconds on all the checkpoint times. By the end of the week though the speeds go up much faster and the penalty-free window shrinks to only plus or minus six seconds.

Here are in-car videos of three of our stages from 2004. Greenspond Island is just a short little stage. Our average speed target of 55km/h (34 mph) was not all that challenging, but the stage is very tight and twisty. We nailed the finish time right on the money and were feeling quite pleased with ourselves.

Bishop's Falls at 75.0km/h (46.6mph) was a lot faster. You have to go quite a bit faster on the straights to make up for the time lost slowing for any corners.

Grand Bank at 63km/h (39mph) was insane. It's ridiculously tight and twisty. We fell behind schedule early on and never managed to make it up again.

[Holland]

Very nice, congrats

[Massive Lee]

Will you be at Targa Newfoundland again this year Lee?

I was just offered to crew for 2009. A team from Ontario entered a 2002 and I was asked to be the exclusive support crew (I'll still give a hand to Roy Hopkins and Adrienne Hughes - two consecutive times overall winners), and Brian /Ken Jarvis are not returning i 2009. I am tempted to accept, as I can take a 2002 in parts and put it back together overnight. But my 2008 experience with the constabulary force was less than satisfying. Driving 85kph in an 85kph zone and supposedly being radared at 115kph. Yeah sure. As I live in Montreal, I cannot appear before a judge in Newfoundland and plea my case. Therefore I am screwed. So, I might want to not go back to Targa for that reason.

Lee

[xLibelle]

HAHA, nice!