Targa Newfoundland Day Five - The Finish to St. John's

Finishers medal, Targa Trophy plate, podium finish (second in the Open Division), and not a scratch on the car (well, not that you can see).

Especially considering what happened last year, we’ll happily take that.

Since my co-driver Brian Bourbonniere from Halifax joined me after lunch on Day One of Year Three (2004) in our then-new Mini Cooper S JCW, we have garnered two Open Division titles, one second and one third, plus a third-in-class when we ran in a Production class in 2004.

Not bad for six years together.

We didn’t have a great day yesterday. Our crew made some changes to the suspension to try and give us more compliance - in the jargon of the racing business, we were chasing the set-up.

But because you never have time during a Targa event to test the changes, you’re never certain you’re going in the right direction until you’re already there.

Or not, as the case may be.

Also, our Toyo Proxes 888 tires worked very well in the dry, and pretty well on damp pavement, but not so much in standing water.

Fast and flowing is a common description of the roads we race on here.

On Friday, that more accurately described what was ON those roads.

In fact, some of the transits were as difficult or more so than the special stages. At one point on the Trans Canada Highway, at 95 km/h in sixth gear, the engine would simply rev freely - no grip whatsoever.

And because the Mini’s track is slightly narrower than the truck-caused grooves in the pavement, it felt like a bobsled out of control, bouncing from one rut to the other.

So we took about six minutes in penalties.

But under the careful guidance of the brilliant Bourbonniere, we managed to nurse this strong little car to that second-place finish in the Open Division.

For a brand-new untested car to finish second to a billion-horsepower World Rally Championship Audi quattro, driven by multi-time North American rally champion Frank Sprongl - well, that's OK.

True, two of our closest competitors either broke (Matt and Brian Oldford’s Integra engine blew up Tuesday) or fell off the road (Peter Robindaine and Daniel Héroux’s Civic did some high-speed farming Wednesday; they recovered but couldn’t quite catch us).

But that’s racing. It is a long week.

Our engine didn’t blow up.

We didn’t fall off the road (been there; done that).

So, a good week overall.

We’ll have a complete review of the event next week in the print edition of Wheels.

For complete results, visit www.targanewfoundland.com.

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Below: If the tires aren't working, it's not a problem if they're up in the air.

Comments

[Keith Tanner]

Nice work, Brian and Jim! Congrats on the Trophy plate. That soaking wet last day with everyone on used tires sure shook things up right across the board and we sure appreciate the nightly updates.

We ran the RA1 instead of the R888 last year because I thought it would be better in deep water, it would be interesting to do a back-to-back test between the two in those sort of situations. Not that it matters for anyone but Targa racers, of course!

[sjk]

Outstanding! Congratulations.

[Jonathan]

Jim,

Yep - Pardon the slight pun but they say admittance is the 'first stage' to recovery... I admit I was one of the looney folks standing in the rain at the Flatrock and Confed Bldg. prologues on Sunday, again standing in the rain on Monday near the start, out again during a drive 'around the bay' on Thursday and got seriously soaked in the rain again on Friday evening (Marine Drive stage) and of course as with years past, I'll do it all again next year regardless of the weather. My 6-year old daughter begged to be taken along with me to Targa events throughout the week and she had a "so awesome" time as a ride-along passenger on a spin around the crowd-favorite charity AutoX on Saturday as well.

On behalf of many people who haven't had the chance to say so - Thanks again for taking the time to sign autographs, recant interesting Targa experiences and be the super nice folks that you are.

I know it has been said before but Targa is the best show we have down here (and you know enough about Newfoundland to know we aren't afraid to have fun).

See you back here next September for Targa 2010. I'll be the one with the camera standing across from that red bridge shown above :)