In Car Footage

Here is some footage from our incar camera. This was the first competitive stage of the 2007 Event, Stage 1-1 Argentia. We call it how to catch and pass a Porsche - Part 1. Part 2 to follow...

The challenge on this stage was that my intercom connection came loose and Geoff could not hear any of my instructions. That made things interesting as we used a combination of hand signals and yelling. I managed to fix the connection on the fly and we were in business...

Enjoy

Who needs a road???

We found this picture on the MSN Auto website embedded in an article on the race. I don't remeber this one particularily but pretty cool. Thanks to John at Knar in Guelph for finding this picture. The photo was taken by Bill Petro and full credit to him on this great shot!

Higher Quality Pictures

Here are some pictures from the video that we have posted in higher quality. All of these pictures are courtesy of Paul Dyer from St. John's who followed the event around and took over 5,500 pictures during the week. Pretty talented guy!

Some Cool Video

As more resources become available we are able to put together more coverage of our experiences. Enjoy this video.

Some more pictures

Some Random Pictures and Video

For Hardcore Followers - A Rally Primer

Targa Newfoundland, which uses rally scoring, is not like a regular car race where the fastest car wins. Because the event attracts cars of various ages and mechanical abilities, a handicapping system is used to score the event. Each class of cars is assigned a based time that is a predetermined factor designed to even the playing field between the older and newer cars. There are further refinements based on the size of the engine allowed in each class. If you drive the special stage in a time equal to or less than the required base time, then you "cleaned" the stage and accumulated no penalties. If you exceeded the time, then you would be penalized 1 point for each second you exceeded the based time. There were other penalties as well for exceeding the maximum speed of 200 kmh on any stage that would also be assessed and added to your time, if caught!

In our case our class had the third fastest required times. As an example the overall winner of the event was a 1969 BMW Tii that had times that were over 13% slower than our required times. Basically they could drive slower than us to meet their time. This was designed to allow cars of different vintages to race against each other. Therefore being the fastest car on the road, while cool, doesn't necessarily guarantee you a win.

For example, the fastest car in the event overall was a factory prepared World Rally Car from Subaru running in the Open Class and driven by pro drivers, the Paynter brothers. The second fastest car was another Subaru running in the Open Class and driver by father and son team of Tony and Ryan Kloosterman. Despite posting the two fastest times throughout the event, these cars finished 8th and 11th respectively.

We consistently averaged in the top 5 fastest cars each day ending the week as the second fastest on day five. This, as a result of the handicapping system, resulted in our overall 7th place finish, out of the 57 Targa entries competing this year. We are proud to not only have finished in the top ten, but to have run some very fast times doing so.

Out of the field, 9 teams were unable to finish the event for a combination of mechanical problems and off road "incidents". One unfortunate end was experienced by our friends Bob and Nadine Saville who's beautifully prepared and finished Porsche 914 suffered irrepairable damage after an off road excursion. Fortunately they were unharmed and managed to put the car together and drive across the finish line in true Targa spirit. A picture of their handiwork is above. We also had the pleasure of competing with first time Targa entrants, Nick Papayianis and Will Atkinson of Fort Worth Texas. They were competing in a well prepared 1988 BMW M3 that had an unfortunate run in with a house on day 4. They were in the running for some hardware at the time of the incident and became too familiar with our quickly your run at this event can end. We tracked them down after the day ended to determine they were OK and not only were they OK, but they managed to bang out the damage and cross the finish line to receive their medals. They will surely be competition in the future when they return.











Our average speeds across all stages each day were as follows:

Leg 1 - 108.2445
Leg 2 - 112.1074
Leg 3 - 105.1586
Leg 4 - 115.9894
Leg 5 - 102.8603

More pictures and posts to follow...

A successful ending...1st in our Class!

Hi to all, we are back after a great and successful campaign at the 2007 Targa Newfoundland Tarmac Rally. We exceeded our expectations and finished 1st in our Category, 1st in our Class, 2nd in our Division and 7th Overall in the entire field.

We ran some of the fastest times of the week.

We will post a complete summary of the week soon with lots of pictures and video from our in car camera as well as video posted by others on the web.

Here is a video clip from Day 4. We go by this corner about 30 seconds into the video immediately following the green Lotus that we caught on this stage... Credit to the person who caught and posted this clip on YouTube.

September 11th 12th Legs 2 & 3 - from the Crews perspective...

Tuesday we were off on Leg 2. The route took us through many small communities. Whole villages would come out to watch by the roadside. Kids were given the day off school. Everyone involved in the race, including the service crews were greeted by the spectators with enthusiasm.

The most memorable race stage of the day was the run into Leading Tickles. Geoff and Scott were moving very well on a 30 km twisty into the town. They crested a hill at 160 km/hr and found themselves airborne. Suddenly very quiet in the car, until an eternity later, after completely passing over a slight “S” bend on the downhill, they touched down with a whoosh. Geoff looked at Scott, Scott looked at Geoff, and said something to the effect of “What the ‘he**’, shouldn’t there have been a caution on that?” The in-car video camera tape was full at that point and no longer recording. We were approached by a fellow who was setup filming the corner and wanted to find us as he caught it all on tape. We will post a clip as soon as we can access a fast connection to get the video. He said it was the coolest line taken by the whole group. The story, in the meantime is already getting better with the re-telling.

Lunch at Leading Tickles’ Oceanview Park was hosted by 4 different groups offering 4 different menus. One of our favorites was brewis with scrunchions, which is mashed cod mixed with bread and onions, and fried pork back.

The view from the lookout at the park was worth the 10 minute ascent.

Since some of the spots designated for servicing the cars en-route were tight on space, there was no way to get the truck and trailer with the tools, and race fuel close to the car. Fortunately Gary was able to borrow his grandson Jackson’s little wood wagon before we left Ontario so we were saved the effort of schlepping the stuff by hand.

Soon after lunch on Tuesday, we heard from Angela at TDI that the master brake cylinders had arrived at the hotel we were staying at in Gander. John Dimoff at Raven had liberated these for us from Steve Gailits’ car. (We had called him Sunday night. The cylinders were on their way Monday morning.) When Geoff and Scott finished the day’s driving around 8:00 PM, we went to work on the car and in short order the brakes were fully operational again. This was a true team effort. Thanks to John, Steve G, Steve B and Angela. You guys made it happen.

Wednesday dawned cold, windy, and rainy. Someone noted that the Targa tradition of Hurricane Wednesday’s was being continued. However, the weather did not daunt Geoff and Scott. The car was now right on and they moved up through the pack in standings making up for lost time. At the end of Wednesday, they now stand in 1st place in their class and 16th overall. Having brakes really makes a difference!

The car is sorted out very well now. The trailer is compensating for the car’s good behaviour. Yesterday we had another trailer tire problem and a change beside the Trans-Canada highway. However, the trailer’s bad behaviour is no match for the good people of Newfoundland’s helpfulness. Shortly after calling a Goodyear Service Area manager, we had 3 people open up their shop for us in Clarenville 2 hours after closing time, find and mount a matching tire for us, and do so with such a good

What a day.....

The schedule for our third day consisted of 8 special stages which covered the communities of Davisville, Frederickton, Musgrave Harbour, Greenspond Port Blandford and completed in Clarenville. We drove through many other beautiful towns and villages.

Along the way were were greeted by many people standing at the ends of their driveways and in groups along the route. We stopped to give out our "hero cards" and t-shirts and to say hello and thank you for welcoming us into their communities. We were also greeted by gale force winds, driving rain and slick conditions in the morning. Rain quickly separates the field with some teams taking large time penalties as a result of driving too cautiously. The stages for the day ranged in length from 2.29KM to 12.44KM with required average speeds for our class of up to 124.1 km/h. This may not sound fast for those commuting to Toronto to work, but try it in a 100 year old fishing village beside the ocean!

The results of the day have us moving to 1st overall in our class and 18th overall. The times are very close and there still remains two days of competition.

There were two particular highlights of the day for us. We stopped in a small fishing community called Barbour Village which was a beautiful community perched on a barren rock peninsula in the ocean. The women of the community put together a fantastic lunch consisting of cod chowder, sandwiches and a vast selection of desserts. The second highlight was from our last stage of the day in Clarenville. On this stage we beat our class time by 32 seconds as a result of a fantastic run and a great show for he community. A gentleman came up to us after the day to comment that he could hear us roaring up the street before he could see us and the crowd simply loved the speed and sound of the car.

The car is running great and now that we have our rear brakes back, our confidence has increased and allowed us to drive at a higher level. As a result of our actual times on the stages we will be starting the day tomorrow as the fastest car in our class. We look to gain more ground tomorrow of the overall competition as the times get tougher to meet and our car settles into a very comfortable rhythm.

Days are still long and nights longer, so we have put up a picture from one of the stages taken by the official photograper of the event Darlington Mediaworks. More to follow tomorrow.

Weekend Preparation and Leg 1

With the arrival of Geoff and Scott on Friday evening, the 2007 Longest Drive Targa Team were assembled in St. John's. Work continued on the car until dark tying up the last loose ends to get the car ready to pass tech inspection. Most of the team headed off to a BBQ hosted by Scott and Judy Giannou’s. A fun, perhaps too fun, time was had by all.

Saturday morning at the tech inspection, the months of preparation paid off. The car passed with flying colours.

Fast forward to the Sunday prologue. This leg does not count in the Targa scoring. It is intended to help determine a starting order for the first rally day on Monday and as a dry run for all the participants, and rally organizers. Geoff and Scott decided ahead of time to take it easy and use the leg as a warm up for Monday. During the prologue, the car developed a problem with the brakes. Under heavy sustained braking, the pedal sunk to the floor Even so, Geoff and Scott placed 6th overall out of a field of 70 plus cars.

Back at the hotel parking lot, a few tests, and consults led us to the inescapable conclusion that the Tilton master cylinder for the front brakes had developed a problem. In spite of the fact that the cylinder was brand new and Tilton is reknown for its reliability, it failed. So, unfortunately, this part is one of the few not in our cache of spares. We swapped the lines between the front master and the back, thereby moving the problem from the front to the back brakes. Then we adjusted the brake bias to strongly favour the front brakes. In effect, we minimized the effect of the problem but did so by virtually eliminating the back brakes.

A call to Raven Performance, found John Dimoff in the shop. Although he didn’t have any Tilton master cylinder spares on hand, he offered to borrow a pair from Steve Gailit’s race car. Angela at TDI arranged for overnight shipping to Gander. If all goes according to plan, the car will have brakes on all four corners again by late Tuesday night.

Monday was the first day of real racing. We were up by 5:30 AM, packed and on our way by 6:30 AM to the St. John’s curling arena where the cars were on display. Andy Proudfoot and Bruce Terris, friends from previous Targa’s rode with Gary, Bryan, Scott, and Geoff to the arena. Six full size guys in a pickup truck. But where there is a will, and a cab fare at stake, there is a way.

It was a mixed bag of weather, conditions, roads, and performance. Geoff and Scott turned in a couple of blazingly fast stages, one being the trip into Placentia for breakfast.

As the day worn on, it became colder and quite wet. They were not happy with their performance during the 30 km stage running into Gooseberry Bay. This stage is very demanding. The weather was so poor that alternate scoring was used to correct for it and a portion of the stage was even cancelled. Weather coupled with the defective brakes, slowed down considerably Geoff and Scott considerably. Scott is off checking the official results at the Gander Community Centre as this is being written at 1:00 AM but overall, we are pleased with the day.

Tomorrow, instead of 500 km, there is only 300 km in the leg. Only a single refuelling midday will be required. Bryan and Gary will be driving the service vehicle into Leading Tickles so they can fuel up the car around noon. Since the there is only one road in, they have to be in there well before the road is closed for the race. So, off to bed, tomorrow will be here very soon!

We are here and having fun!

We are busy with driving, checking the car and just getting ready. It was a good day and we expect to have an update posted with some great shots and a detailed update.

Thanks for checking in.

What have we forgotten....

After spending the last 6 months building, testing, and refining the car at Raven Performance with John Dimoff, Steve Barnett, Steve Gailits, and Bryan Corlett, the car has left the building and is currently on the way to the Targa Newfoundland Rally.

Gary (Geoff's Dad) and Bryan (Geoff's brother) are trailering the race car out to Newfoundland. They left Monday morning and now have about 1200 km under their belts which puts them more than half way to North Sydney, NS where they will catch the ferry Wednesday morning for Newfoundland. They have to be there for 4:30 AM EDT. Ouch!

The truck and trailer are behaving well as are the occupants, except for a bit of crankiness at the end of the day on the part of the occupants of the truck. We are all looking forward to getting there and finishing the last bit of work on the car in the St. Johns Holiday Inn parking lot, namely installing roll cage padding, fire suppression sys, ballast weights, and most importantly the novelty horn. Then hopefully Gary and Bryan will have little to do other than check tire pressures, oil, and keep ‘er filled up with rocket fuel and watch Geoff and Scott, cool, calm, and collected, kick some serious butt out on the course.

Here are some additional pre race pictures. More to come from St. John's.

Getting Closer...

We are nearing the point of completion with a number of things requiring attention. Many options are being dialed in regarding setup and settings, but there never seems to be enough time. Bryan and Gary leave next Sunday. The car will be loaded onto the trailer for transport. They catch the ferry in North Sydney Wednesday September 5th with Geoff and Scott flying out on the 7th.

We have had a few more opportunities to drive the car, and most major items seem well in hand. The skid plate and tires are yet to come.

The graphics were done on the weekend and the car looks great.

More Testing Video

Here is some additional video from August 1, 2007 in Dunnville. This clip has the sound of the engine...sweet...

Some Testing Video

We had our first test run at the Dunnville Autodrome in July and the car ran great. We came out with a list of about 40 items but that was the point.

Check out the show...you can watch it on this page or double click and get a larger window that may run smoother...

Maybe testing the car would be a good idea

For a change this year we thought it might be a good idea to actual test the car. Actually this was always out plan every year, but the autoshops never had the car ready. When we committed to returning this year, we mandated that the car would have to be done early so that we could test.

We ran the car for a couple of hours in Dunnville on a track and came up with a list of 30-40 items that needed attention. Bryan Corlett and John Dimoff took the car back to John's shop, Raven Performance Inc. to complete the list. Hopefully we will have the finished product next week to test again.

Here are some pictures from that day. You can click on the picture to see a bigger version if you wish.

We're Back...

What's the old saying? you can't keep a good man down? Well after a one year hiatus, we are back on track for the 2007 Targa Newfoundland.

To remind everyone, we had an amazing, if not challenging run in 2004. The time of our lives with the help and support of Peter and Sandi MacMillan, Geoff and I left everything on the course. We learned alot and managed to finish the event. For a summary you can visit our old blog http://www.4speedracing.blogspot.com/

We returned in the 1974 BMW 2002 Turbo in 2005 for our sophmore year having spent many hours of preparation complete with a new engine and setup for the car. Unfortunately, we were out on the first day due to mechanical failure.

This is what we spent our time doing in 2005

This year will be different. We have changed cars and will be competing in a 1995 BMW M3 CSL (Lightweight).



Stay tuned for more updates to follow the adventure.