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 | |  | September 16, 2011 - The Harbour Grace stage had already been canceled for undisclosed reasons, so we started the day just after lunch on the tight Carbonear stage.
Thanks to the canceled stages, we were at lunch very early. So we took the opportunity to take a quick tour of the stage, enough to get our bearings and program my memory. It's got some tight spots, so we're glad we did. The first run was in the dry and listed as Condition 1, but by the end we had our wipers on. Still, we were the fastest of the Open Class cars. Everyone took significant penalties. There was one exciting moment where an unmarked crest in the road turned out to be a mid-corner jump. We dealt with it, but it did add a bit of drama.
For the second run, conditions had degraded. And then it got ugly. Really ugly. About the time we hit the first turn, the hurricane arrived. Visibility dropped to near zero. I had to identify turns by spotting landmarks, such as a mailbox just on the inside of a tight left corner that I could use as an apex marker. All the way through, I just kept thinking "bring it home". Speed was not important. By the end, we took a massive 1:39 in penalties, nearly a full minute longer than our last run. The cars running earlier in the pack weren't affected, and cars that had been 30 seconds slower than us were 30 seconds faster thanks to the weather change.
After that, we moved on to Brigus. This is another of the classics, and we get to run it twice this year. The first time, we were informed that we were running in Condition 3. We were warned of standing water, poor visibility and dangerous turns. This in a stage that is very narrow to begin with. So we tip-toed through the course cautiously. Still, I somehow found space to hit 100 km/h. On the second run through, we were told that we were in Condition Targa. This means the Targa time (40% slower than base time) was our base time. In other words, real slow. We easily zeroed that one as we were actually faster due to improved conditions over the previous run.
And that was it. Targa 2011 was over. We lined up in a big Targa jam and tried to parade in to St. John's for the ceremonial finish. We did manage to get all the Miatas in line together, and managed to cross the line just as the PA system went down. Kinda summed up the day, really.
entry 990 - tags: 2011 race, Brigus, Carbonear, finish | | |  | September 16, 2011 - Brandon and Zach, tired and happy at the finish.
A couple of small mistakes yesterday caused them to pick up 14 penalty points, which unfortunately pushed them to 5th overall in the preliminary results. An excellent result for a first-time team, and two mistakes over five days of demanding competition is a pretty good record! You'll be able to read more on Autoblog when Zach's report is published there.
entry 991 - tags: 2011 race, results, Zach, Brandon | | |  | September 16, 2011 - The final results have not yet been released for the Open class.
According to my understanding of the rules, we have finished third. It all depends on if one car is counted as a finisher. We were 4:59 behind the winners...and we took that 5:00 penalty for the bad main relay. Sigh. Still, it tells me we could run with the big boys. We got to the end of the week safe and with a car that had proven to be pretty darn reliable. We changed an ignition coil on Day 2 to prevent a problem and identified why it may have been weak. And then the bone stock original Mazda main relay let us down. Otherwise, it took an incredible amount of abuse on fast, rough roads. The predictable handling and excellent suspension let me take full advantage of the huge power. It was actually quite shocking that, even in the wet, I could give it nearly full throttle in first gear if I got moving without breaking the tires free. Bystanders reported that I was coming off the line as well as many of the Subarus in the wet. Overall, everyone said the car looked very well planted and a number of teams were quite complimentary on how well it was set up. We also got a few comments on how the two of us were packed into the car.
I think it was a surprise to a lot of people, and we've proven the car has the ability to win the whole shebang even with a less experienced crew. Maybe someday we'll get a chance to come back and give it another shot.
Our goals were to finish, to bring home a Targa plate and hopefully place well. We managed the first, just missed the second and did fairly well on the third. Both of our biggest challengers failed to make the finish line.
More details later once the results of a number of inquiries (rally-speak for "requests for corrections") have been addressed.
entry 992 - tags: 2011 race, results | | |  | September 18, 2011 - The final results have been posted, and we're third overall in the Open division.
Excellent. During the (very long) awards banquet, we got a lot of compliments from our competitors both on the car and our performance.
We managed to squeak out third place by one whole second in the end. The Toyota Corolla (AE86) that was fourth had been slower all week, and was running much further ahead in the pack. He missed the hurricane in Carbonear, and a full minute of our lead evaporated on that one short stage as we sloshed through the monsoon - a stage where we'd been 30 seconds faster than the Corolla just 40 minutes before. We got lucky there, but I think the results are appropriate. There were a lot of inquiries about that downpour, as it affected some competitors far more than others. It didn't end up making any difference to our division but it sure could have.
Would we have preferred to win the whole thing? Of course. We got unlucky with that main relay failure. But we led the event for several days and showed that our little beastie could really move. We didn't make any major errors and most importantly, brought it home safe, sound and healthy. Mission accomplished.
entry 993 - tags: 2011 race, results | | |  | September 18, 2011 - Brandon and Zach took home some hardware as well.
They finished 5th in the fairly well populated Grand Touring class. But they placed better than any other novice team, and that combined with their great attitude won them the Grace Cup Novice Award. It was a real surprise - they didn't even know it existed - and there were a lot of big grins at our table.
There have been some questions about what happened with the scoring in our division. We were initially listed as fourth, behind the Subaru STi of Mike Davenport. Well, Mike's Modern-class car broke on the first day. He got lucky - thanks to that cancelled stage, he didn't miss any stages. But the car wasn't going to come back. Richard Burton had a spare car on hand, so he loaned it to Mike. Yes, Mike managed to borrow an Open-class car from another competitor - how cool is that? He rejoined at the beginning of day 2 and ran with our class.
Targa Newfoundland looks for ways to let people drive. It's one of the refreshing aspects about the event, they look for solutions instead of looking for problems. But you can't just swap over to a new car with a fresh engine, fresh tires and fresh suspension without penalties.
Effectively, if you do this, your car is penalized as if it did not start competing until it hit the stage. So Mike's scoring should have reflected a complete day of missed stages (5 minute penalty) plus the maximum time attained by anyone in his division for each of those stages. It's basically as if Mike never drove that first day - although he did get to keep his times towards his Targa plate.
During the rally, these penalties were not being applied due to a miscommunication between the scoring team and the event organizers. Once that was cleared up, those extra penalties (approximately 13 minutes worth) dropped him from 4th to 6th.
There was also a lot going on with the Modern class results. I don't know the details and I won't speculate, but the second-place car was disqualified. At the banquet, the final results were still up in the air. Matt Oldford took home the first place award again, and rightfully so.
entry 994 - tags: 2011 race, Brandon, Zach, scoring, results | | |  | September 22, 2011 - Race videos.
I've been gradually working my way through what in-car footage I have at the moment, and uploading them to my YouTube channel. There are still a few to come. Due to the untimely demise of the camera, there are some gaps in the coverage, but more videos will be added over the next few weeks.
entry 995 - tags: video, 2011 race | | |  | September 24, 2011 - On the way home from Newfoundland, the two Targa cars stopped off in Ottawa.
One of the reasons (the primary one was because that's where my family lives!) was to visit the Underground Miata Network (UMN), the Ottawa-based club that supported us both in 2008 and in 2011. It was a good evening with lots of questions about the cars and the race as well as some excellent hamburgers. Performance Mazda vacated enough room in their showroom to let us park the cars inside, and the general manager there proved himself to be a proper gearhead.
The UMN was actually the club that gave us the most support this year. Their target was a thousand dollars, and after they passed the helmet around for a final time on Friday night they surpassed that fairly comfortably. I was involved with this club before I moved to Colorado, and I was really pleased to see that they're still so active and passionate about our little cars. If it wasn't for groups like this, we wouldn't have been able to run the race!
entry 996 - tags: support | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Romping through Gander.
This is the first time through, when I was basically acting like a hooligan. A hooligan with a big grin.
This is the first of a number of photos from Gordon Sleigh, the official event photographer. So we're going to take a few steps back through the race here. Note the red tape. You'll see both red and yellow tape in the background of a number of the pictures. Red tape denotes a potential impact area, and spectators are kept free of the red tape zones.
entry 997 - tags: 2011 race, day 2, Gander | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Exploring the limits of suspension travel in Gander.
The notes for this stage warn about bumps on the inside of corners where the drains are. And they're right! There's a much better looking version of this shot, taken just before I hit the bump, but this one's just so dramatic. I'm happy to report that the car was not upset in the least by this behavior, and the next shot in the sequence shows it carrying on happily. And people wonder why I spend so much time working on suspension travel. I was able to do things like this without any concern about upsetting the car.
According to Zach, there are something like 29 turns in this stage - and I suspect that he left out the dozen or so that weren't marked, but that were parts of a suburban crescent. Even without those, that means an average of one 90 turn every 10 seconds for 5 minutes. No wonder it's so exhausting.
entry 998 - tags: 2011 race, day 2, Gander, suspension | | |  | September 30, 2011 - The "driver/codriver communication class" from the first day of the race.
As you can see, the Flyin' Miata team paid close attention but it was a remarkably poorly attended class. The others in the room were mostly the supercar owners. More teams should take part in this class, it's very worthwhile.
entry 999 - tags: 2011 race, class | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Stampeding through Greenspond.
This was a remarkable stage, and we're just coming up through the most remarkable part of it. I've got my head lifted as high as I can, trying to see over the hood of the Miata as we come out of a steep climb and get ready for a hard right turn.
The car looks so industrial in this shot. The black tape is holding the hood down at higher speeds, and you can see some of the undercar skid protection silhouetted against the dust.
entry 1000 - tags: 2011 race, day 3, Greenspond | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Splashing through Brigus.
Action shot!
entry 1001 - tags: 2011 race, day 5, Brigus | | |  | September 30, 2011 - I took it easy over the bridge in Brigus, as I knew we didn't need the speed.
More importantly, I knew we were going to land on a greasy wet wooden bridge. Until you've driven one of these, you have no idea just how unbelievably slippery they are. With enough speed, we could have cleared the whole thing. But there was no reason.
Still, as you can see, we did manage to lift off. I had no idea until I saw this picture. The landing was smooth as silk.
entry 1002 - tags: 2011 race, day 5, Brigus | | |  | September 30, 2011 - The two cars at the end of the race.
Both are in fine shape - more on that later - and didn't require the massive interventions required to get some of the other cars to the end. They sucked up everything we threw at them. Nancy, the 2006, is running all off-the-shelf parts from Flyin' Miata including the Stage 2 suspension kit. Even though he'd driven it quite a bit during development, Brandon was really impressed with how it held up and dealt with the poor road surfaces. The only adjustment he made was to stiffen up the shocks slightly to suit his taste.
The Targa Miata was a star. Many of the other drivers thought I was nuts trying to wrestle a V8 Miata through the race, assuming it would be a beast to control. Of course, it was nothing of the sort. The big engine was the most obvious change to the car when compared to 2008, but the changes in the chassis also meant that the car was more competent at the higher speeds. Big bumps in particular were handled very well, and the skid plates underneath meant that I had nothing to fear if we did ground out. What a great tool.
entry 1003 - tags: 2011 race | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Brandon and Zach's office.
The tape with numbers on it are to remind the crew what the average speed for a given stage should be. The spare ones on the door are both souvenirs and spares in case another stage uses the same speed. The two egg timers are a Day 2 addition, one counting up and the other counting down. This way Zach knows if they're running on time. There's a pre-stage checklist on the dashboard as well.
Moving over to Brandon's side, you'll see red tape on the speedo to remind him of the overall speed limit. He's also got a GPS mounted to the dash as a backup to the Terratrip, showing average speed. It's a different sort of cockpit than we have in the Targa Miata, fine-tuned for a different purpose.
It should be pointed out that, after competing in the Targa, I drove this car home from Ottawa to Colorado because the space in the trailer was taken up by another car. Race numbers, interior additions and all. The fact that it's a real car with cruise control and A/C made it a lot more comfortable than you might expect - these Targa cars work in the real world too. Although they do attract a bit of attention to be sure.
entry 1004 - tags: 2011 race, ergonomics, Brandon, Zach | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Back home and up on the lift, it's time to check out how the car fared.
Well, score one for skid protection. My UHMW sliders got a good workout protecting my catalytic converters, which is exactly what they were built to do. I think that small skidmark on the cat was already there. The front skid plate didn't take too many impacts, but there were a couple. One of them might have done damage to the v-band connecting the header to the exhaust system had the plate not been there.
Other teams - notably the army mechanics who were working on the Soldier On car - were quite impressed with the undercar protection. It worked.
entry 1005 - tags: protection, skid plates | | |  | September 30, 2011 - Overall, the car is in excellent shape.
The rear subframe brace took the worst beating, which wasn't a surprise. Ground clearance back there is at a bit of a premium and my experience in 2008 was that the back was the most likely place to hit. The skid plate/brace did exactly what it was supposed to do and protected the important bits.
Elsewhere, there's very little sign that the car just finished such an ordeal. In fact, all we need to do is bang the rear skid plate into shape and we could run another week. Even the tires would be good for a few more days of racing. We replaced a coil that had heatsoak problems due to my heat shielding, had a video camera die (and lost a GoPro off the roof at speed) and of course lost the main relay. But overall, the car proved itself to be a strong and reliable tool with a huge turn of speed. By contrast, I was speaking to one of the MINI drivers after the event and he had a big list of problems to fix. For example, both of his front upper strut mounts were damaged and he'd replaced them once or twice already during the race. We had no similar concerns.
I've also been thinking about The Relay. At the time it happened, I felt that I should have been able to fix it on the side of the road and rejoin the race without the DNF for one stage. However, it wouldn't have made any difference in the end. By the time we'd extricated ourselves from the car, set up the triangles and OK sign, instantly diagnosed the problem, reloaded ourselves and rejoined the stage, we would have lost too much time to catch the Challenger and the M3 that finished ahead of us.
entry 1006 - tags: impact protection, skid plate, post-race | | |  | October 6, 2011 - Transit in the rain.
Heading from the final stage to the finish line in a light drizzle, photo by Zach Bowman who was quite entertaining as he hung out of the window of the other Miata.
entry 1007 - tags: 2011 race, day 5 | | |  | October 10, 2011 - Time for a post-event track day.
Why? Because I can! The car was in as-raced form, right down to the bag of snacks stuffed into the passenger's door. I'd never actually tested this swaybar setup on our track, and I'd made some tweaks to the shocks in Newfoundland. So I figured this would be an interesting check on how the race setup worked in the different environment.
The weather was quite a bit different than my previous test days at this track. Instead of the very hot temperatures that plagued the testing all summer, it was cool. About the same temperatures as seen during the race, actually.
My first session was very entertaining. The car was loose, very loose. I know it had some oversteer tendencies during the race but that was also coupled with great turn-in and lots of adjustability, so I was quite happy with that. Rally drivers hate understeer! But on the little tight track, it was too much. The rear sway was on the middle setting, so I tried disconnecting it completely. That led to too much understeer on turn-in. Setting the sway to the softest setting woke the car up again. It was still a bit tail-happy, but very controllable. I think the best setup would be a slightly smaller rear sway bar than I currently have, so I'll dig into my collection. On a bigger, faster track the current setup would probably work very well.
So how did it work out? I set a personal best in the car, a 1:03.661. My previous best time was 1:03.725. Not a big improvement - but it's significant because the previous time was set on the RA1 tires and with much stiffer and lower suspension settings. I'm thinking I'll pick up a set of R-compound tires for next summer while I continue to run the R1R on the street. That should make a considerable improvement.
I did have one failure on the day, though. When I was driving down the interstate to the track, one of the exhaust tips fell off. Not a major failure, and I didn't even notice until I saw the car in the pits. oops!
The picture has nothing to do with the track day, but I didn't have my camera with me. Taken by Zach Bowman.
entry 1008 - tags: testing, track | | |  | October 24, 2011 - Road test!
If you're wondering what it's like to drive the Targa Miata, Zach Bowman can tell you. He slipped behind the wheel after the race and got a chance to get a feel for the car. I wish I'd been able to get him on to a closed stage so he could really feel it rampage, but he was really impressed with what he got. His biggest surprise was how docile the car was. He was expecting a challenging car, but the Targa Miata is really a pussycat to drive fast.
If you want to read Zach's writeup, it's on Autoblog.
The picture is of the Torbay prologue stage, taken by Ralph Saulnier. Come to think of it, it might have been fun to strap Zach into the passenger's seat for the second time through this stage.
entry 1009 - tags: autoblog, test drive, review, press | | |
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