September 14, 2008 - Sorry about the fractured nature of these updates, it's almost a stream-of-consciousness piece of writing.
This race diary is also my "scrapbook" of the event, so I'm trying to make sure everything gets in here. Hey, this is what it's like to run this sort of thing.
We had a 90 minute driver's meeting this morning, going over everything from roll call to errant paperwork to how the timing works. This year's Targa is a little different in that last regard, and really easy to figure out. In the past, if the roads were damp (Condition 2) or wet (Condition 3) we had to figure out a percentage change in our base time, which implies dry (Condition 1). No longer. Now we have nice tables in our route books. A simple change on the part of the organizers, but a big load off us. We're also given our ideal starting times for every control and stage start, which means no more math on the part of the codriver. The TSD crowd might call us softies, but Janel has lots to do already.
There's also no maximum average speed anymore, so it's impossible to finish a stage too early. There's no benefit in going faster than our base time, but we won't be able to hit our base time on all stages anyhow. There are speed restriction zones (SRZs) that have a hard 80 km/h (50 mph) speed limit and there's a blanket 200 km/h (126 mph) limit on the entire event. 200 km/h on unknown public roads? Okay, that should be fast enough for me. Janel reports that she feels no need to go quicker.
My parents are acting as support crew for us. We haven't needed them for much support yet, but it's really nice to have someone who can procure Timbits when required! They'll help out more tomorrow once I start doing more to the car.
Tomorrow's a long day. Approximately 450 km of driving over 11.5 hours. We also have to check out of our very comfortable hotel at about 6:45 am, which means corraling many miles of wires and cables and battery chargers and books and highlighters and shoes and clothes...
tags: prologue |
THE DIARY