Pictures. The hurricane has not yet arrived, but here's what the weather looks like. This is going to add another dimension to the stages. In poor conditions, the stages can be downgraded to condition 2 or condition 3. That gives you about 5-10% more time to finish the stage without penalties. In 2008 with our relatively low-powered Miata, that was a blessing as the rain didn't slow us down much. But when the full-in hurricane hit in 2011 and I could not see a thing further away than 20', it slowed us down a lot.
Setting the car up for rain. It won't be a big deal yet, but tire management is important as the race goes on. You only get 6 tires to play with, and if you burn them all up in the dry it can be a problem when the rain hits. This bit Glenn Clarke badly in 2010, he was in the lead until the last day when his bald tires couldn't deal with the rain.
Rated "awesome" by the Vivid Racing team.
Day 2 is over - and only one team is penalty-free. One. That's not typical.
The superheros are Hume and Van Adrichem running in Grand Touring. It's been shown in the last few years that the only way to win this division is to zero absolutely everything. They do have three teams that have 4 seconds or less nipping at their heels, so there's no room for error.
In Classic, the Mustang of Brunno and Latenberger has fallen out of the top group thanks to what looks like an off in stage 4. 3:29 in penalties has dropped them way down the order. Scott Giannou has taken his accustomed place at the front of the pack with 9 seconds, followed by the Escort at 13 and Shanaham at 48.
Modern is much the same as yesterday, but things have spread out a bit. ACP is on top with 7 seconds of penalties, followed by a pair of BMWs with 17 and 25 seconds each. ACP's putting in a great performance, with only one stage slower than the base time - the very difficult second run through Gander. Jim Kenzie still appears to be struggling with his Kia. He balled up his successful Mini in 2008, and it took him a couple of years to get the replacement dialed in. It could be the first-year problems once again. Unfortunately, Oldford was unable to rejoin the race.
Open looks almost identical. The leader, Dyer in a Mitsubishi, stayed clean until the final stage when he picked up 7 seconds. The factory Fiat had a little more trouble with Gander, picking up 20 seconds over the two passes. Most of this division stayed out of trouble today, although it does appear that one BMW failed to finish a couple of stages and was assigned penalty times because of it. The Volvo 245 GLT of Piscatelli and Piscatelli (the names are familiar, I need to check why) struggled through the day and did not start the last stage. I need to find pictures of this car.
Today was 12 hours of rain and fast stages. It's actually good to see everyone taking penalties. One of the odd things about how Targa is scored is that you cannot get rid of penalties. The only way to catch up with the guy in front is to wait for them to take penalties, and hope you take less. Someone who is zeroing every stage is impossible to catch. If everyone's picking up penalties, then it basically comes down to the fastest car through the stage. As the week goes on, the base times are going to get harder and harder to reach so we'll see even more penalties coming.
