Targa Newfoundland 2008 - Day One: And then there were four...

Placentia has claimed another victim.

The stage through the oldest continuously-inhabited European community in North America (sorry, St. Augustine Florida) contains some fast corners, some tiny laneways that look like Joe Butler's driveway, the infamous Jack MacDonnell Sea Wall (where said Jack crashed his Datsun 240Z on the next-to-last stage several years ago) and a bailey bridge!

But the toughest corner is a long downhill left-hander that looks for all the world like a banked oval race track. As the car nears the bottom of the "soup bowl", the suspension gets compressed right against the bump stops by centrifugal force, so when it hits the massive pothole at the apex of the corner, the car just bounces into the air because there is no springing left to absorb the bump.

Depending on where you have the front wheels pointed when you depart the earth, and/or where the car lands when it eventually does, you may get lucky and carry on up the hill on the opposite side - as Brian and I did a few years ago. In fact, that might have been the first time I got more than two consecutive words out of him in the car. As I corrected right, caught the rebound and corrected left, then right again to regain control of the car, he just looked up briefly from his pace notes and said, "Nice catch. 90-left in three, two, one…''

A man of few words, our Brian.

Last year, an Austin Healey and a Honda CRX both ended up in the ditch on the outside of this corner.

Two years ago, Ross Karlin and David McIntyre backed their BMW M3 into said ditch. This year, navigator McIntyre had added a little picture to his pace notes at this corner, showing a little car off the road with a big "X'' through it. "DO NOT GO HERE!" was the message.

Somewhat ironic then that Karlin and McIntyre were among the first cars to stop and assist Dyrk Bolger and Terry Milnes, whose lovely old (1963) turquoise Mini had hit the ditch with extreme prejudice. Karlin who heads up the Emergency Medical Services team in his home town in New Jersey immediately set to work to secure the area and tend to the occupants, while McIntyre drove their car on to tell the officials downstream that there had been a serious incident.

Janel and Keith Tanner in their beautiful Mazda Miata had actually been the first car to stop - several others drove on past because they never even saw the little Mini in the ditch, so deeply was it embedded. The Tanners, rookies to rallying let alone to this event, did everything they were supposed to do in a very difficult situation, so congratulations to them.

Brian and I and several other cars stopped too, to help warn on-coming cars of the problem.

Something this serious always means the stage is "scrubbed'' - it won’t count for scoring. The challenge is always to get the news to the start of the stage so the timing marshals won't send any more cars into the fray.

Two ambulances and a fire truck soon arrived. Dyrk had already got out of the car; Terry, wisely, chose to stay in the vehicle until the paramedics arrived to do a safe extraction, which involved slicing off chunks of the car's body to get him out.

By day's end both had been released from hospital, bruised and sore, but not seriously injured.

The car, however, looked pretty much used up. Hence the reference to "four'' above - there are now four Minis remaining, the two new-generation cars of Brian/myself and Doug Mepham/John Solecki, and two 1959 models driven by Richard Patterson/Tony Mattson, and Dave Pledger/Chris Willett.

Dyrk and Terry from the Winnipeg area were rookies last year; they could barely spell "rally". Dyrk had done a lot of vintage racing with the car, and it showed in his fast and very tidy lines through the corners. The team finished first in their class, and third overall in the Classic division, an astonishing result for first-timers.

Of course, you never wish to see anybody crash. But it is especially difficult when it happens to a lovely, well-driven older car like this - containing two of the nicest people you would ever hope to meet.

Another crash saw a Honda CRX go so far into the woods that again, most subsequent competitors, including us, never even saw it. I don't have details of this one as I type, but again, the occupants are OK, the car not so much.

On the positive side, the weather was largely spectacular - one misty cloud caused a few windshield wipers to be turned on - and the driving has been terrific.

Tomorrow we drive up to Leading Tickles, just about everybody's favourite stage.

Tune in tomorrow for details on that - and on how Brian and I work together in the car.

Comments

[Jonathan B.]

I saw the pictures of the peeled-open Mini yesterday and heard about the other 'offs' and am glad that everyone was okay.

There we were on Sunday afternoon, standing on a small grassy/rocky hill just past the apex of a much greater than 90º turn on a road in the middle of Torbay and we saw quite a treat. That historic Audi sounded as sweet as candy to our ears. We dropped into the Curling Club later in the evening and availed of some closer contact and took home a couple of hero-cards and some smiles. I'll be catching a few more stages throughout the week so smile as you pass by...

On behalf of everyone here in Newfoundland and Labrador, I feel the need to say a personal Thank You to you again for bringing this adventure literally directly to our doorstep for the past 7 years. The gleam in everyones eyes shows that those silly Europeans, South Americans and most of the rest of the world (with the exception of the US and Canada) are not actually mentally impaired to be standing alongside a small road for hours awaiting the noise and quick flash of a few dozen successive rally cars scooting along.

Drive safe but as near the edge as you can...

[Jack MacDonnell]

Always a honour Jim receiving a mention in a column of yours. If you're going to be recognized for something, might as well be for a 1" thick steel retaining wall that you hit while racing at Targa NFLD! Carson and I certainly left an impression (ba-da-buum)…

All the best to you & Brian and the rest of the competitors for a safe and fun event. Bring home some hardware again for the Halton Hills racing fraternity (ok, so I’m in the Caledon Hills – it makes us brethren at least).
Jack Mac

[Jimmy]

Hey, I really wish you would stop waving the American flag all of the time, and please stop knocking the Japanese. They build far superior cars to the American crap and I know you're doing it because of the economy and how close we're tied to the U.S. but come on...I thought you were an automotive journalist.

Isn't a journalist supposed to write about the facts and seek out the truth? I can't stand to listen to you and the rest of the guys at Motoring any longer...praising KIA...really? Great quality there right? Oh there's a word you don't mention when praising the American or Korean cars.

[Jim Kenzie]

Hi Jimmy:

Not sure why this comment came up under "Targa Newfoundland 2008 - Day One..."

Well, the Japanese think I'm against them, the domestics think I'm against them, the Koreans think I'm against them, the Europeans think I'm against them.

I must be doing something right.

Only the Chinese and Indians don't seem to think I'm against them, maybe because I have yet to drive a Chinese- or Indian-made car.

I have personally owned cars from all major car-making countries except Korea, and all of them have had their good points and their bad points. I try to keep my road test comments relevant to that model and/or that company without reference to where the company is headquartered or where the specific factory is located.

The state of any country's economy also has absolutely nothing to do with my comments on any car. I think I can speak for our team at Motoring too.

All independent analyses of quality, both initial and longer-term, suggest that the quality gap between cars from various countries is now so small as to be almost unmeasureable - certainly nowhere near what it was fifteen or twenty years ago.

Toyota's recent issues have clearly shown that even it isn't immune.

And if you think Korean cars aren't any good, you obviously haven't driven one in the past five years or so. They started figuring out mechanical reliability back in the mid-1990s when our racing team won various championships in various Hyundais. Interior colour matching, fit-and-finish and suspension refinement take a lot longer, but they're getting there too.

Their value-for-money is inarguable, and even their resale values are starting to firm up.

You might not think they're competitive, but car manufacturers from all those other car making nations, not to mention consumers world-wide, sure as hell do.

Jim Kenzie