Targa Newfoundland 2009 is on!

I am glued to these updates, keep it coming Keith

Glad someone's enjoying it

It turns out Steve Millen does have a neophyte journalist navigator - Mike Monticello from R&T. That's a great way to guarantee magazine coverage, but it's a gutsy move to put a novice in the navigator's seat when you're driving what's quite probably the fastest car in the event. The amount of trust a driver has to have in the navigator is enormous - think about what it takes to keep your foot to the floor over a blind crest at 120 mph based on the word of someone sitting beside you. I mentioned this to Janel - my navigator - and she said "what about that poor journalist?"

They're not releasing raw stage times, so we don't know who's actually fastest. But based on the start times for Leg 2, it's either the GTR (with the Audi next in line) or a turbo Integra.

More pictures! Here are the sort of guys who make Targa possible. There are 2200 volunteers involved. Think of the logistics.

Heading for Salvage. Many of the turns are marked with arrows like this (not the ones on the road sign, the red one on the fence), but if you get to the point where you're driving the arrows or using the flagging tape or the marshals instead of listening to your navigator, you're way slow. A couple of times last year we had to drive right through tape that had been ripped free and was blowing across the road. In every case, I had to ignore the tape and listen to my navigator. And she was correct every time.

Enjoying the updates and photos - no mention anywhere else I can find....

Hope to catch it in March when it airs..

Go Acadian!

Keep it coming Keith.

RossD wrote: Keep it coming Keith.

+1

No fresh news at the moment, we have to wait a few hours until the day's stages are over. But the Stillen team does report that the driver/navigator combo is gelling, good stuff. They also report a leaky CV boot that is currently patched with RTV. Not a major problem.

From the Stillen site, a few sideline pictures. Tire smoke by Audi. One of my regrets of the race last year is that I never got to see this thing run in anger.

For Varkwso, hot Acadian action! Jed's always a contender, the only recipient of a platinum Targa plate for hitting the trophy time on every stage for 5 years in a row. Jed does not hang around on the stages, either. He was apparently the very first entrant to the very first Targa Newfoundland.

For those who don't know how the race works, there are three times set for every competitor in a stage. The base time is your target. If you finish the stage in that time or less, you "zeroed" it and you receive no penalties. If you take longer, then you get one penalty point for every second you're late. Nobody can zero everything, and the winners last year had a total of 45 seconds of penalties. We finished 16th, and had about 7 minutes worth The base time is what's used to handicap the cars, the slower classes get more time. And the base times get more aggressive as the week goes on so they're harder to hit as you get tired and your car starts to sag under the pressure.

The trophy time is 135% of the base time. If you finish every stage under the trophy time, you are awarded a Targa plate at the finish. It's a test of consistency, a mechanical failure or an off will cost you a plate. Last year, about 18 teams got a plate. If it's your first time to run the Targa, this is your goal.

There's also a new minimum time this year. If you finish the stage with an average speed of 135 kmh or more, you take penalties just as if you arrived late. This is to keep the speeds a little bit under control. I don't think it would have been a factor for us last year at all although it may make the fastest cars back off a bit. There's also a 200 kmh absolute speed limit on the event, something that didn't bother us at all. It would have if we'd had some horsepower.

One thing to keep in mind about the race is that you can't "make up time". Once you've accrued penalties, you're stuck with them. All you can do is avoid picking up more. So if the guy in front of you has one point fewer penalties, all you can do is wait for him to pick up more. If the two of you continue to zero the stages, he'll win even if you're faster on every stage. A heroic battle from behind isn't necessarily possible.

Anyhow.... It was pretty wet yesterday morning. This is Argentia. We didn't get to run much of this stage last year, as a Mini went into a ditch and the stage got canceled. We were the first on the scene, Janel was quite calm about the whole thing.

The most incongruous factory entry. They're running in Touring, which means the race is basically a TSD. They have a slower base time and penalties for both early and late arrival as well as mid-stage secret checkpoints. They run the same closed stages as the Targa class does. If you want to have fun on the Targa for the lowest cost, get a slow vintage car (or a rental!) and drive the wheels off it in Touring.

I'll bet he's glad he stiffened and raised the car! I'll bet it gets lifted a bit more tonight. One disadvantage Steve Millen has is that he's got R&T in tow, so he's having to do publicity work as well as race. The fact that he's got a full service crew takes a lot of pressure off, but the extra distraction still wouldn't help. Especially for his poor navigator. Last year, Janel took every spare moment she could to study the route books and mark them up, then I'd go over every stage before we ran. It paid off in our case. She would not have had time to give interviews.

Good stuff. Keep it up Keith.

Thank you for this Keith!

I don't know if I'll be able to, but I really want to go watch TCW! And Newfoundland as well!

Keith wrote: Note that my comment was referencing "Stillen". The marketing behind this effort is pretty wound up and has been for a while. Steve Millen may be the coolest guy in the world - never met him - but the firm is pulling out all the stops and is forecasting a win. As they should, of course. But I'm not going to automatically hand them the win. Remember, Sprongl and the Group B Audi was supposed to walk away with the event last year.

superblackser wrote: Ok, ok, already - the car is "low" in that photo. Don't you think Steve knows the course?

I don't know if he does. The car's been low every time I've seen a photo of it, and that's the only shot I've seen of it in Newfoundland so far. It could be the size of the car making it look lower than it is, of course, and maybe they do have plans to lift it for the rough stages somehow. But the road conditions in Newfoundland aren't like California, and I don't know if Steve made any sighting trips. Just checked, here are two pictures from the Stillen site. The caption for this one is "STILLEN GT-R as it exists prepped for the Targa Newfoundland, with the full rally preparation finished." And this one, taken in Newfoundland on scrutineering day. That looks more like it.

All good points. I don't pay much attention to Stillen marketing since it is a bit over the top ;)

There certainly is the man then the company, and they are quite different. As to forecasting a win first time out, optimistic for sure simply because as you pointed out they have stiff competition, and honestly I cannot imagine winning Targa first trip. I've never been (yet) but it seems complex enough that despite a great deal of preparation I think you'd walk away from your first much wiser in the "could have, should have" dept. I'll root for Steve but honestly will be quite surprised should he win. Podium, yes, just top spot is asking a lot of all involved, well beyond the car.

As much as I do like the car and Nissans in general (owning 4 currently) there are a lot of unknowns and to the best of my knowledge outside of Nissan testing perhaps no one has really put the car to this sort of test. The pre-race photos all look like Marketing pics aimed a street audience, many of who would just not deal with that last photo. They cannot compute a car with a lot of travel that's not slammed ;)

Great photos and thank you :)

Great updates, Keith - keep them coming!

Day 2 results are in! No pictures yet. Day 2 was possibly my favorite of the race, and the day I think I performed at my best. Not sure why, that's just the impression I have when I think back. And it had some of my favorite stages in it.

Something happened today. The Leading Tickles stage (in-car video) - one of the classics, and the stage I probably drove closer to my maximum than any other - isn't on the results. I suspect there was a crash that shut down the stage. No word on what happened to Leading Tickles but the NSU TT is listed as DNS for subsequent stages.

Roger Tillotsen and Steve Robertson were a couple of very cool guys from the UK who were a lot of fun to hang out with while waiting to start a stage, and they rolled their Impreza WRX Sti on Pleasantview, a quick woods stage (in-car video). That's a real shame. The guys aren't badly injured, but the car is pretty rough according to the official press release. According to the listings, they DNF'd Bobby's Cove. That's the same stage as Pleasantview in the opposite direction, so it's an easy mistake to make. Bobby's Cove video.

It's not that unusual to finish day 1 without penalties - pretty much required if you want to do well. But to finish day 2? Glen Clarke has done just that with his 911. He's the one that runs the almost-required Targa school and knows his stuff. He's still running free of penalty points, excellent work.

A lot of people finished the first six stages clean, but the times on the Gander stage are very tough and that's where almost all the penalties came from at the pointy end of the field. Gander is awesome - it's run through a modern subdivision. Ever fantasized about going berzerk through one of those flat, soulless places? Well, that's exactly what happens. It's like a 5 minute autocross and just ridiculously fun.

In second, we have the Acadian with 1 second of penalties. Third is that green 911 I fingered earlier with 3 seconds. Then the GTR (6 seconds), the 2002 that won last year tied with a Camaro (8 seconds). The monster Audi, the Mk1 Escort, a 911 GT3 and a 911SC driven by an experienced competitor are all tied for 7th with 14 seconds.

It's still a pretty wide open race. The GTR is leading the modern class at the moment. One thing that's pretty cool is that there are 911s running in groups 3, 6, 7 and 9. That illustrates the competition history of the platform pretty well!

superblackster said: ...to the best of my knowledge outside of Nissan testing perhaps no one has really put the car to this sort of test.

From my understanding, the GTR has won Targa Tasmania. But it's a much smoother race than this one. Steve Millen is certainly in a position to make it happen though. And yes, Stillen marketing is a bit aggressive

Jim Kenzie, driving the MINI factory entry, is a super-nice guy. He greeted me by name before I even got out of the car when I arrived last year. He and his navigator Brian took Janel and I under their wing and gave us - especially her - a lot of very helpful advice. They're past winners of the Modern category and usually quite competitive. They had a big, big wreck last year, doing a couple of endos on the fast section of Leading Tickles and are back with a new turbo MINI. It's set up too stiffly so far, Jim's reporting difficulty keeping the car planted and they're unfortunately out of the hunt. Jim and Brian, and Roger and Steve, are two of the teams we'd really like to see again.

Photos for day 2 are online.

Jim Kenzie and Brian Bourbonniere.

Godzilla on (I believe) the Gander stage.

Marc Lachapelle had an off with the factory Subaru on the prologue, but he's been able to run every stage thanks to some hard work on the part of the crew. His navigator (Keith Townsend) wasn't able to continue due to a cracked rib, so crewmember Stewart Ho jumped into the right seat. They're running 14th.

Defending champs Hopkins and Hughes. They won in 2007 and 2008. Quick car, fast drivers and class 4 - a tough combination. Bill Arnold, the BMW legend from California, gave them a solid run for their money last year until a strut collapsed on his car on the penultimate stage. Bill's not here to keep them honest this year, but it looks as if they have some pretty good competition so far. They're sitting in 5th with 8 seconds of penalties.

Don't you wish this picture had sound? On the Port Leamington stage, from what I remember. This car is tied with the 2002 in 5th.

This is what navigators do while the drivers are standing around bench racing and telling stories. Pierre Beswick from the BMW Turks and Caicos team studying the pace notes for the next stage.

Now we know how all that gravel gets thrown on to the road.

If this doesn't make you want to go to Newfoundland for 2010, why are you still reading? Turns out Leading Tickles was cancelled due to "communication problems" according to Jim Kenzie. Good, that's better than a big crash.

The Stillen blog got updated last night. In it, the author (not sure exactly what his role is on the team other than publicity) claims that the GTR got held up by the factory Subaru for most of the last stage. It's possible - the Subaru came through with a +35 time on that stage while the GTR got +6, and there's a 30-second space between the cars although the Audi should have run between those two. But the rules are clear, if a car comes up behind you have to let them by and there's certainly room for that on the Gander stage. Marc Lachapelle, the factory Subaru driver, has done Targa a number of times and would know this and would have let the GTR past quickly. In fact, the 2008 TV coverage shows him letting a car past on the Gander stage! I expect the GTR just caught the Impreza right at the end of the stage. I know what it's like writing recaps of the day when you're tired and emotionally involved in the team, sometimes it's hard to get just the right tone.

They also tell a story of being allowed to work past 1:15 am on the car even though the service area officially closed at midnight. That sounds about right - the organizers do what they can to to help the teams, instead of enforcing rules simply to be a pain in the butt. No problems are reported on the big GTR, so I'm curious as to what they were doing so late. It's certainly a big endorsement for having a service crew, though. A smaller effort with the driver doing most of the maintenance would be wrecked from a similar night.

The Stillen blog claims the Leading Tickles cancellation was due to crowd control. No official word yet, but the important thing is that it was it wasn't a crash.

More pictures! This is the Roger and Steve's Subaru. According to Stillen, Steve suffered a broken wrist and that's all. It's a shame to see these guys out of the race. Good job with the roll cage, though. The windshield didn't even break and it appears both doors could still open.

A 2010 Mustang (do I have that right?) running in the Open class. It's a novice team and they're picking up a fair number of penalties - but they're out there and they're having fun. This is the Gander stage, it's at the end of a long day so it can get a bit dark.

All of the service work is done in hockey arenas and curling rinks, with the locals milling about. The Targa is hugely popular with Newfoundlanders, and this is a big part of the fun of the race. Whoever parked the GTR beside three classic Minis has a sense of humour, though.

I just discovered that the times are being posted through the day - at least sporadically. As of right now (just after noon in Newfoundland, the lunch break) everyone has picked up penalties. Musgrave Harbour, a brutally rough run through a small village, was too much for anyone. The GTR picked up 16 seconds, the leading 911 got 4, the vintage 911 - now in 2nd overall - got 6 and the defending champion 2002 only picked up 2.

Right now, it's all vintage cars in the top 5 covered by a total of 14 seconds. The GTR is the fastest modern car in 6th, and even if they were held up by 6 seconds by another car in Gander it wouldn't make any difference to the standings at this point. We're starting to see the times spread out, but the stages only get harder from here so it's possible to see some big penalties which will shake things up.

One change to the rules this year was the removal of Speed Restriction Zones. They were installed on just a few stages to keep the average speed down, mostly on long straight sections. They're abolished this year because of the average speed limit. The crews are rejoicing, as everyone hated them. The base times for those stages must have been adjusted, but based on the low penalties for those stages I suspect they weren't adjusted enough. Last year, we took 43 seconds in penalties on the New-Wes-Valley stage and passed another car (meaning we were 30 seconds ahead of them), and this year most competitors zeroed it. Setting the base times is tough.

We got held up by another car in a stage last year and picked up 4 seconds in penalties. It was pretty frustrating and I filed a protest, but it didn't matter in the long run.

I'm enjoying the updates

amg_rx7 wrote: I'm enjoying the updates

ditto - good summaries

Nothing beats the voice of experience, and these are well written updates also Keith, kudos

aussiesmg wrote: Nothing beats the voice of experience, and these are well written updates also Keith, kudos

Hmm, does anybody write/send in articles for targa to GRM? Maybe Keith should take a shot!

Janel probably appreciates you guys being a bit patient with my ramblings, as otherwise I'd inflict it all on her. She's interested in what's happening to our friends, but teams she hasn't met don't interest her.

The final times for day 3 are up! First, there were some changes to the penalties for Musgrave Harbour. The base times were adjusted for some reason. Was it a drop to Condition 2 for weather? Don't know at this point. But it does mean that a bunch of the penalties I reported earlier have vanished. So, amazingly, Glen Clarke is still penalty free after three days of racing. I'll bet the organizers are actually a bit concerned about this, as there have to be some "impossible" stages to allow a race to develop.

Looks as if that green 911 of Stoschek/Spaeth was well spotted, he also finished the day clean so they have only the three seconds of penalties they picked up on the Gander stage. Hopkins and Hughes in the 2002 also cleaned the day, although they weren't quite able to move up and are tied with the vintage Camaro pictured above. Jed in his monster Acadian only took two seconds of penalties, and he's currently tied for second with the 911.

The GTR got 6 seconds of penalties on that rough Musgrave stage, leaving them in 6th overall with a total of +12. They're leading the Modern division, but if they still think the Subaru team cost them 6 seconds yesterday that would be the difference between 6th and 4th.

I'm really hoping the next two days bring on some really hard base times to everyone picks up some penalties, as that will open up the field somewhat. For some perspective, last year after day 3 two teams were tied for 1st with only +3. Jed's doing a lot better, though, with +3 instead of last year's +16. And last year he ended up taking 2nd. A lot of Targa veterans don't think the race starts until day 4, and it kind of looks like they're right.

Further down the leaderboard, things are more spread out. The Mk1 Escort is doing well, sitting behind the GTR at +18. The Audi is in 10th with +41. The Nissan Pulsar is in 14th at +2:24. The total field is down to 34 cars from 41 or so. Poor Lucy, the Las Vegas Mini that was kept running only by the sheer stubbornness of three teams last year shows DNF for most of the day, so hopefully it'll be back. The Healey has disappeared. I'll have to sit down and figure out who's gone missing.

We'll see if the various pictures and blogs add any depth to what we're seeing on the scoreboard so far. With 5 teams separated by only 8 seconds at the pointy end, there's some racing to come.

HiTempguy wrote:

aussiesmg wrote: Nothing beats the voice of experience, and these are well written updates also Keith, kudos

Hmm, does anybody write/send in articles for targa to GRM? Maybe Keith should take a shot!

Thanks guys. I hit David with 4000 words after last year's race. A bit more than he expected, methinks There is going to be some Targa content in an upcoming issue, I'm not sure if it's the next one or not.

Pictures for day 3! If you like 'em, order some from Gordon. He's one of us, he owns a Miata

Because I'm posting the pictures here, you have to deal with my obsession with this car. It's RHD, by the way. The driver is not sleeping.

I've always felt the Solstice kinda looks like Bugs Bunny. Here's what Bugs would look like after he snapped and ate Elmer Fudd.

Looks like the roads did get wet. I'll bet that's what happened to all those penalties on Musgrave. The Targa is put on by the Giannou clan. This is son Scott driving, he's pretty quick. An engine failure parked him last year, but he's doing well this year and sitting in 8th overall.

MINI and Tiger! Both of these cars are in the Touring class, so someone's either running way above their required speed or someone's way slow. They should be at a fixed 30 second interval. The organizers courted Minis and MINIs this year, and there are a bunch of them.

This guy grabbed the best number out of all the racers. He's currently sitting 10th, second in the Modern class. The Audi is now listed as +30, there's been a change to their time so they've moved up to 10th.

Not much other info available right now. We'll have more from Stillen in the morning.

Need...update...please......

Most of the info tends to come in after the day's racing. Stillen updates the next morning, and there's been a lunchtime upload of times the last couple of days.

Stillen reports they almost got hit with a high average speed penalty on the second stage yesterday - the limit is 135 kmh. So they backed off too far for the third stage and got hit with a 6 second late penalty. Since it's not the in-car crew reporting this, I'm not so sure. The third stage is a really rough town stage, and there's no chance at all of an average speed of 135 kmh - the fastest last year was 107. It's more likely that this stage punished the car's suspension more than any other, and between that and the car's size they simply couldn't beat the time. Of course, that could also be the inexperience of the journalist navigator but after 3 days he should be pretty much on the ball. I can certainly see that team having to keep an eye on the maximum average speed in the fast stages, though. It could be that maximum average penalties are not applied, last year there were a couple of rules that were selectively enforced.

Stillen reports the CV boot is repaired after another 1 am work session. I'm not sure the CV boot was ever a major concern, but it's been sorted now. Boy, I'll bet they're glad there's a full service crew for the car! It's a big, heavy, powerful car so it'll need a good nut and bolt every night. As opposed to the light, small, low power classic Minis that need a good nut and bolt every night

A more grassroots effort without the dedicated mechanics has to balance sleep and wrenching time. Does this mean a more cautious approach to taking care of the car? Good question. I know that we had learned by the second or third day that our car could take a real beating thanks to the under-car preparation, so a really big hit was unlikely to cause any problems. More fragile cars would have to weigh the tradeoffs of lifting for a bad bump versus the risk of breaking.

The service crew for Stillen also reports problems with fumes in the support vehicle. They're carrying their own fuel inside a van. The rear of the van has been sealed off with plastic now. There was a proposal to limit all vehicles to pump gas this year, but it was met with a fair bit of resistance. Does the Nissan need special fuel, or are they just being cautious about contaminants? There are stories in the Targa community about people losing engines due to dirty gas a few years back. Seems to me an aggressive fuel filter system would be part of a good rally car spec.

We ran our race on 91 octane pump gas last year, with a 5 gallon reserve jug in the truck just in case. Never needed it. The factory Challenger and the MINIs did the same, the Audi and Mitsubishi service teams were carrying around barrels of rocket fuel. There's a concern on the part of the Newfoundland locals about the safety of this, and it's easy to see why.

In case anyone's wondering, I'm not trying to be hard on the GTR team. It's just that they're reporting more information than any other individual team, and I'm trying to interpret it. I've been that guy trying to report from the sidelines while working on the car, and the information that gets into your head is not always 100% accurate. It's part of the race.

Unfortunately, they didn't post any great pictures.

Current results: the four fastest teams are staying penalty free so far today so there's no changes in those standings. Remember, unless you pick up penalties, you can't drop back in the standings. I get the impression there are fewer penalties overall than last year, which means speeds have picked up. Get ready to see some more aggressive base times next year

The GTR has picked up another 2 seconds of penalties, and pretty much every other team has taken some. There's not much movement on the leaderboard, but the GTR has moved into 5th overall. Scott Giannou's 911 has moved ahead of the Mk 1 Escort into 7th thanks to a faster time on the long, fast Garnish stage.

Marystown seems to be causing most of the penalties today. It's a rough city stage that has some tight turns and some big sweeping ones. It's also one of the favorite spectator stages. They love the Targa in Marystown. Spectators line the bridges, making the race almost look like the WRC. Our in-car video from last year.

Obviously, this picture is from last year.

A fair number of either mechanical or crash-related problems today. Five cars are currently DNS (did not start) for the most recent stage - one of them that poor little blue Mini that is causing premature aging in a whole raft of mechanics. The Pulsar missed the start to the last stage, possibly due to a breakdown on the road section.

There are 31 cars currently posting times. Last year, we had 39 at this point.

Times for Day 4 are up. And it turns out there was a re-working of Day 3 for some reason. Not sure what, maybe the base time for a stage was readjusted. That happened last year with the Brigus stage after it turned out that the base time was way too fast and almost everybody failed to hit their trophy time. Anyhow, it means that everyone is carrying penalties now.

Clarke's 911 is leading at +4 now after the Day 3 rework. The Stoschek 911 is in second at +9 and Hopkins' 2002 is third at +10. All three of those teams cleaned day 4, not picking up a single penalty. Amazing. So we still have a really close race for the top three spots. There's no way all these guys can avoid penalties tomorrow.

Next we have the Acadian at +21, the GTR has +26 and the Camaro +27. Then a jump to the Escort in 7th at +1:00, Scott Giannou's 911 at +1:03 and the Audi at +1:36. An E30 M3 from the Turks and Caicos team rounds out the top 10 at +1:52, and is also the second place Modern division car.

Looks like Lucy the Mini only had a temporary collapse, it put down times for the afternoon. The Pulsar hasn't returned yet. It's funny, 5 911s in the top 12, and with the exception of Glen Clarke, they're all running in order of age. The oldest cars get the more lenient base times, remember. That's one reason 7 of the 8 fastest cars are classics.

The 10th place M3. Now that's a tight line around a corner.

The leading 911. Not quite stock, from the looks of things. I don't see any glass for example.

Ever seen the part of Dust to Glory where the Trophy Trucks leave the start line and three-wheel around the first corner? This is awesome.

The lunch stop in Fortune. There's a stage through the village, then the locals stuff the teams full of food (including a platoon of grandmothers making desserts as if the family honor was on the line), then everyone goes and runs the same stage again. The line of cars waiting to start a stage is called the "caterpillar" as it inches forward, one car every 30 seconds. It takes forever to get to the start, and then the car in front of you evaporates and things happen very fast.

I think I figured out why the Pulsar missed a few stages.

The GTR. Just how hard do you have to throw one of these into a corner to get the back out like this?

You can tell that everyone's stepped it up a notch because of the competition. Day 4 was the day last year that really wiped us out - the run back to Marystown from Fortune was the first time we consciously took things easy to avoid going off. We also found wild blueberries while waiting to start the stage. Mmmm.