| THE 2008 RACE |
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 | | September 15, 2008 - We were 28th overall in the prologue, and seeded very nicely.
It was gratifying to see that we were on the pace, as there was no indication at all yesterday of how we were doing.
Early morning start, long transit. Booooring.
Stage 1, Placentia. It's like a series of old abandoned roads through a subdivision that no longer exists. A little odd, but there's nothing to hit so it's a good place to start off. It worked out pretty well for us, with just one error when Janel got a bit mixed up between incremental and cumulative distances and we almost tried to make a hard right turn into a pull-out. No harm done and we finished the stage without further mishap. Checking the numbers, we found that we had managed to finish the stage in our required time - to the second! That means no penalty points, and the cool kids call it "zeroing" the stage. Whew.
The next stage was Argentia. It's a town stage with a lot of crazy corners and angles. Early on, we came around a corner and there was yellow tape blowing across the road. Another competititor must have taken a chunk out of it. I lifted, Janel heard me and just said "GO!". The route book is always right.
A bit further down the stage, we were in the middle of a long left corner with a dip halfway through that has claimed a lot of cars. I spotted a driver standing by the side of the road holding up a stage access card with the big red cross facing us. We were the first on the scene, so we pulled in. I told Janel to run down and set up the triangles while I grabbed the first aid kit and headed for the car. A classic Mini had gone into a slide and entered a deep ditch backwards, ending up on its side and almost out of sight of the road. The driver was out but the codriver had decided to stay in place because he was worried about his neck. I turned off the ignition and talked to him for a while as we flagged down the next car to go get an ambulance. Meanwhile, we tried to slow traffic and ended up pulling over most of them. The ambulance and fire trucks arrived and started to cut the Mini apart. We had to leave. We drove the rest of the stage relatively slowly, which was a shame. It would have been an awesome one. The good news is that, at last report, the navigator appears to be in good shape.
The organizers do leave lots of time at various service stops for everything to get back on track after a problem like this one. We started the next stage - one car short - right on time. In the meantime, Janel had an epiphany on how to read the route book that helped her out tremendously.
Stage 3 was the first of the fast stages - Osprey. In order to zero the stage, we had to average 123 km/h. That's 14.4 km in 7:01. Since I've spent so much time autocrossing, I figured I should be good at the city stages but not at the high speed ones through the woods. I've driven at high speeds, but always on a track that I know well. So, how would this translate to rallying?
Pretty well, as it turns out. Only the "out of character" corners are marked in the route book, and the longer pauses gave Janel time to make sure everything was being called properly and on time. For example, the first call is 4 km into the stage. Meanwhile, I straddled the yellow line down the middle of the road and tried to read everything as I came up to it at high speed. It was, as you might imagine, exhilarating. I had to use every tool available to me to figure out where the road was going to go and to dance the car around, and I had a little guardian angel to tell me about the hard bits in detail before they happened. We finished the stage about 14 seconds early. We don't get bonus points for finishing early, but it felt great. We did manage to bottom out the car twice on the course, once on a long hard sweeper with a hidden bump. The car felt great, though. Very controlled and able to do whatever I asked. Even that big hit didn't unsettle the car at all although it apparently looked from outside as if I slammed the frame on to the road. Really, all that suspension development time is paying off. The car's very supple over rough terrain. We hit a top speed of 177 km/h on the stage as well, deep in the woods somewhere.
The next stage, Adeytown/Deep Bight, was almost as fast. But tricker, as it turns out. There were some really rough sections that turned out to be very narrow. Yikes.
We have the trip computer set up with a "pilot" speed, telling us if we're running ahead or behind our target speed, and by how much. It's really handy, as I can glance over and get an idea of how much cushion I have - or how much deficit. Near the end of the stage, I knew I was running about 2 seconds late so I pushed hard on the last kilometer to try to claw some of it back. Success! Another zeroed stage with a top speed of over 160 km/h.
After lunch (at 4:30!), we had the Port Blandford stage. 121.1 average speed - and no pace notes at all. There are no junctions, no tricky corners, just the driver and the road. Basically, it's as if you just robbed the bank in a town you've never visited before. Janel busied herself with reading off the elapsed distance so I'd have an idea of how far there was to go. She's learned not to ever look out the windshield because it spooks her and she loses her place. She's running completely off the odometer, and it's working well. Other than in this stage, of course. It wasn't a straight line shot, either, but a tear through a town along the coast with crests and dips and all sorts of fun. About 2/3 of the way through, I was well up on my time so I eased off just a bit. Right about then, I came around a long right that went over a crest. Nothing major, but there was potential for the rear end to get away from a driver as it was unweighted. And sure enough, there was a set of skidmarks off into the trees. The OK sign was being waved, so I got back on the gas hard and zeroed the stage. It turns out there was a CRX upside down in the forest out of sight. Ouch.
Last stage, Eastport Penninsula. By this time, it's nearly 6 pm and we've been on the road since around 7 am. We're about ready to be done. But first, a challenge. The stage runs around a town, all right-angle corners and 500m straights. And a 98.8 km/h average speed. Umm, this is not going to be easy. We don't have the horsepower to evaporate a straight like some of the others do. So we'll have to make it up by being nimble.
It started off well, but I was having trouble keeping up. It wasn't just a flat and rectilinar subdivision, but a city that had grown around the contours of the land. Nothing was straight and I wasn't comfortable enough with the navigational calls to stay flat out over crests when I knew there was a right hander coming up in 300m. Still, it was working. Until we came to one intersection. I had to go straight through, but I somehow had the idea it was a hairpin right that was a couple of hundred meters later. I got on the brakes and asked Janel where to go. She told me "straight straight straight" and we got back on it. We hit 155 km/h running through this down shortly afterwards as I tried to make up time, but we were 2 seconds late coming through the flying finish. So there's our first penalty. We talked about it and we've figured out what happened, so it won't happen again. 2 seconds on a whole day - our first day? That's pretty good. And think about it. I got to drive through someone's small town at triple the speed limit while everyone stood at the side of the road and cheered. Does it get better?
So what's it like inside the car? We're having fun. Sure, the transits are long. BUt we're both really having a good time on the stages and we're loving the teamwork. A lot of people thought we were nuts doing this as a husband/wife team, but it's a great thing for us.
There was one problem, though. When I was checking over the car at night, I discovered that the left rear shock was leaking. That big impact on stage 3 had blown right through the bumpstop and damaged the seal on the shaft. Not good. Of course, I didn't bring any spare shocks. The car's handling just fine right now, but will it stay that way? Some quick moving on the part of Bill at Flyin' Miata and there's a replacement on the way to us. We'll have to do at least one and possibly two days on the current one. Wish me luck.
Today was a long day. We drove about 11.5 hours and covered a lot of ground. Tomorrow is a bit easier, but it's still time to get to bed. More pictures will come later.
entry 17 - tags: leg 1 | | |  | September 15, 2008 - I'm not sure what to add.
I was unable to provide an appropriately posed car, unfortunately.
entry 18 - tags: leg 1 | | |  | September 15, 2008 - The nets I put on the sides of the transmission tunnel are really handy.
Mostly for supplies to keep the codriver alive.
entry 19 - tags: leg 1 | | |  | September 15, 2008 - It's always good to know that you'll have lots of help if you work on your car at the Targa.
Or, if not help, lots of supervisors.
entry 20 - tags: leg 1 | | |  | September 15, 2008 - Want to cool off after a hard stage?
Use aerodynamic science to blow cold air down the arm of your driving suit! We're sure that all of the WRC drivers do this. Off camera.
This rally tip is courtesy of Janel, who is very serious about her job.
entry 21 - tags: leg 1 | | |  | September 15, 2008 - We covered a lot of miles today.
Far too many. Some was on nice four-lane, some was on goat trails.
entry 22 - tags: leg 1 | | |  | September 16, 2008 - A little bit of everything shows up for the Targa.
The Civic was shipped over from the Turks and Caicos islands, and was built for the event. That's some serious suspension travel.
entry 23 - tags: leg 1 | | | September 16, 2008 - Notes, put down fairly quickly after a long day.
There's a Mini curse.
Five arrived, two remain and one of those has had an off already. Eek. One of the retirements was mechanical and I'm hoping we'll see it tomorrow. Jim Kenzie, a previous overall winner, balled his car up on the Leading Tickles stage today. There haven't been all that many crashes, really. More cars have retired (or at least failed to finish a stage) due to mechanical reasons.
Stage 1, Appleton: It was starting to rain lightly, just enough to make me sweep the wipers once in a while. There was a dry spot where the car in front had been sitting when I rolled into the starting position. I had big wheelspin on launch, so I took it a bit easy through the stage. This cost us, as we took about a 4 second penalty. If the conditions had been downgraded to Condition 2, we would have come in a second early. Unfortunately we got the worst of them, so we'll have to take the penalty. Oh well.
Stage 2, Lewisporte: Condition 2. It was wet, so I tried to take it easy on the lauch...and stalled the car. Embarassing! I lost 7 seconds by the time it fired up, but we managed to make it all up through the tight course.
Stage 3, Point Leamington. A loooong 30+ km run out to the town, then back. Condition 2, heavy rain at times. We caught and passed the monster Corvette. There was one sketchy moment where I had to use all of the road, but no more. It was a long right, and I was too fast. I had to balance braking and cornering, and the rear tires were making that scraping noise as they hung on with fingernails. We lost 6 seconds overall on the stage, a few due to a short delay in getting past the Corvette. The driver of that car was very impressed with our speed in the rain. Turns out the Miata does pretty well in those conditions, and a highly powered vintage Corvette does not.
Stage 4, Leading Tickles. The same road, run in reverse. Faster (about 117 kmh average) and light rain. We caught and passed the Vette, and almost caught the Mini in front before we hit the SRZ. No problems in the fast sections at all, but a square left after the SRZ almost caught us out as I was thinking too slow. No harm done, but we got to slide towards the ditch for a bit. Hit 190 kmh on this stage. The car was great, sucking up any imperfections. Following the Vette really showed off our ability to eat up the road. I had the inside wheels in the air at one point and the car didn't care at all. It's a Miata. We zeroed the stage, coming in 14 seconds under our required time.
Stage 5, Bobby's Cove: Fast run out to oyster farm. We beat the Open Class time. Long, fast flowing road, very fun. Consistent speed, unlike the variations on LT. Stop for mussels, freshly harvested that morning. Yum.
Stage 6, Pleasantview: Back again. Faster. I think we passed a 30 km/h sign doing 150 km/h. Heh heh heh.
Stage 7, Glenwood. Amazingly rough. The car was pounded hard all the way through. There was a lot of chaos, one turn had most people overshooting with locked up brakes. We made it through, but it cost us about 22 seconds in penalties. I don't think it would be possible to zero it. Not a big fan of the pounding, personally.
Stage 8, Gander. Yeeee-hah. It's a 5-6 minute autocross through a subdivision. Smooth and easy to see corners, with the sidewalks packed with spectators. After a couple of corners, I realized that I was trying to drive it wrong, and it was an autocross. And I'm an autocrosser, and I'm driving a Miata. So the attack was on. Janel had to hold on to the door handle with one hand and brace her notes with the same one so she could read them because the transitions were so violent. I was laughing like an idiot. We took a bunch of penalties - it's impossible to zero the stage, but we took a big chunk out of the Corvette in front of us. I was hoping to catch him!
Thoughts: The car is acting like a Miata, and has all the right dance moves. It's stable enough that I can brake on fast corner entry without the rear getting squirrily, and it's absorbing everything really well. Fast, rough roads are awesome. The engine is pulling hard right to redline. On Leading Tickles, I was running between 4500 and 7000 rpm in 4th and the car was just perfect. It's small enough that I can choose my lines in corners to avoid pavement problems, which was really helpful on the Leading Tickles and Point Leamington stages. The brake balance is good. It's just as it should be. The only problem is bottoming out the chassis in some really really rough spots. Really, I should probably not be trying to go quite that quickly! Still, the impacts are being handled by the rear subframe brace and it's taking the abuse so nothing else has to. The reinforced frame rails have taken one little hit too - nothing important has been touches. So far, everyone's been quite impressed with our speed. I think we were the fastest novices yesterday, I'm not sure. It does look as if I built a pretty good car and made some good design choices, though. We're making small changes to it such as a bit of padding here and there, and rerouting the intercom cables - but nothing major. If we ever do this again, though, we're bringing a better video camera. We've lost several stages because it's had some sort of problem. It's a bit frustrating.
Rallies engender a certain camaderie between competitors. Because there's no way for one competitor to really cause a problem for another on the stage, everyone's friendly. Nobody wants to win because a competitor broke down, that's no fun. And we have the common enemy of the road. So everybody helps everyone else whenever possible. The pro teams have an army of helpers that swarm over the car when it comes in to service, but it doesn't seem to make things any more fun for the pro drivers. It would be nice not to have to work until 9 pm checking the car over, though.
Greenspond, one of the more memorable stages of the event, has been cancelled tomorrow. The rumour is that there's a funeral, and we do run right past the church. That's a shame for both us and the subject of the funeral, but that's life in small towns. The locals are doing us the favour of letting us close down their roads to race, so we can't complain in a situation like this.
entry 24 - tags: leg 2 | | |  | September 16, 2008 - Janel displays the glamor of auto racing.
She is very proud of the fit of her race suit, she feels it flatters her figure nicely. Someday all the cool kids will wear baggy Nomex.
entry 25 - tags: leg 2 | | |  | September 16, 2008 - This is the parking section for cars with pointy noses.
With a very non-pointy nose thrown in for comparison.
entry 26 - tags: leg 2 | | |  | September 16, 2008 - I loved the juxtaposition of the fast car and the buoys for mussel farming.
It's a great contrast.
entry 27 - tags: leg 2 | | |  | September 16, 2008 - That's the Corvette that we were chasing all day.
It emits a stupendous amount of noise and no shortage of toxic fumes and looks just amazing.
entry 28 - tags: leg 2 | | |  | September 16, 2008 - Mmm, fresh mussels!
They were harvested that morning and were still steaming from being boiled when we ate them. They don't get much fresher than that.
entry 29 - tags: leg 2 | | |  | September 16, 2008 - Waiting to start the rough Glenwood stage.
We went to a short "meet and greet" right after this, and it was the friendliest place we've seen so far. Janel was particularly impressed with the homemade cupcakes, not that there's been a shortage of excellent baking! If this race keeps up, we're going to have to get bigger driving suits.
entry 30 - tags: leg 2 | | |  | September 16, 2008 - Janel and I go over the notes for the next stage before setting off to make sure we agree on the description of each corner.
It also helps if I can see some of the really frantic or unusual sections so I can build a mental picture of where it goes. Some stages have lots of instructions, some have little.
Janel's getting very good at delivering the notes. We have to have a lot of trust in each other, and there's no question that trying to drive many of these stages blind would lead to either slower times, a huge accident or both. The in-town stages are especially important, as there's a lot of navigation involved through the maze of streets. Out on the open road, I need to know when the road does something odd around the next blind bend. It's a big rush for both of us, and after the Gander stage we were both laughing like crazy.
entry 31 - tags: leg 2 | | | September 18, 2008 - Leg 3.
Sorry, this is a day late. I couldn't find internet access in Clarenville, but here's what I wrote at the time.
The classic Mini owners are banding together. The dark blue one (Molly) got a new engine today that was the spare for the light blue one that crashed (Lucy). We did see the blue new MINI by the side of the road near the end of the day though, hopefully it'll be back.
The car needs more spring, I think. The shock's holding out well enough. Since it's not a pressurized design, the only concern is running out of fluid - at least, that's how I understand it. It's not leaking badly, so that's a good sign. The replacement shocks are due to arrive in Gander tomorrow, but we'll be far away from there when they do. Next-day shipping isn't always next-day.
Th Gander stage last night was downgraded to Condition 2 due to light, so that puts us only 7 seconds late. Also, it turns out we didn't come in late in the first stage yesterday. So that's all good.
The first stage: Main Point Davidsville. Very fast and smooth and flowing, right along the edge of the ocean. Gorgeous and super-fun. It's too bad it was only a bit over 5 km. Easy zero.
Slow transit, everyone got behind.
Stage 2, Fredrickton Carmanville. A bit in town at first, then fast and flowing through the woods. We caught and passed a Corvette (not the one from yesterday) quite enthusiastically, another zero. About 30 seconds early, really. Not that this matters, it just shows up on the books as 0 penalties. But man, that was really fun.
Stage 3, Musgrave Harbour. Terrible. Rough and bouncy with a speed bump in the middle. Very hard on the car, and on our penalties. 31 seconds late. Not fun at all. We finished on the Corvette's butt.
Stage 4, New-Wes-Valley. A great stage. All of the square corners were actually fairly fast and it would be possible to carry more speed. Still, it was a fun one. Part of the fun of a first-time Targa run is seeing all these stages for the first time. Would it be as thrilling if I could recognize things? We were 43 seconds late so there was obviously a lot more speed available. Still, what a blast. The Corvette was dispatched in short order.
Stage 5 Greenspond. Cancelled due to a funeral.
Looooong transit. 210 km. Yuk.
Stage 6, Northwest Brook. Similar to the Leading Tickles stage, but tighter in spots, this started in town (with the famous wooden bridge), got into the country where it was fast, tightened up, then opened, then finished in town. Yeehah. We were caught by an M3 just as we came up on a Porsche 911 and ended up running with three cars through the tight middle section. Fairly bumpy in spots and the car was throwing sparks by all accounts, but it was controlled. We came in 17 seconds early. The Porsche driver was quite impressed with both our car and my driving, he thought it went pretty well.
Stage 7, Gooseberry Cove. This was Stage 6 in reverse. We were late leaving due to an accident on stage 6. We got going a half hour late, and were driving into the sun. This was a real problem in spots as we couldn't see the corners. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that this stage gets downgraded retroactively. And it's here that I made my first navigational mistake. Janel called for a square left and I didn't see it. I blew past it - on the brakes - and had to make a 3-point turn to get around. We lost about 10 seconds, I'd guess. Luckily, there was no lasting problem and we didn't hit anything. We hammered on, trying to see where we were going through some tricky corners. Just as the Acadian behind us caught up, we caught the Porsche again so there was a little more three-car action. It's not usually this wheel-to-wheel in the Targa, apparently. We'd already dispatched the Corvette some time ago. The Acadian's target time was a full minute slower than ours (the advantage of a vintage car!) but he was driving the car hard. You could see it moving around quite a bit on the road. I was pushing hard as well and stuck with him for the rest of the stage, but we crossed the line about 11 seconds late. I wasn't too impressed with myself, and the main reason for the mistake was fatigue. It had been a long day. I wasn't the only one having problems. We saw a number of cars littering the stage, mostly due to small offs as far as I can tell.
Stage 8, Clarenville. Another smooth, in-town stage. Well, mostly smooth. We started off on main roads, then ducked down someone's one-lane alley, then back out into the big roads. We caught the Corvette very quickly and unfortunately he didn't see us coming this time. A 1970's Vette is no match for a Miata on this sort of course, and our closing speed was fairly substantial. We followed him around for a few corners until he saw my lights behind him, then waved us by on a narrow bit. The Targa rules say that you have to pull to the right to let a faster car pass as soon as they're behind you, and the Vette driver did. He just didn't see us for a while. I seriously considered stuffing him on one corner, but it would have been ugly. This cost us a fair bit of time and we ended up coming in 4 seconds late. We've filed an inquiry to see if we can get this taken off. I don't know if it'll happen or not. Jim Kenzie saw us catch the Corvette as I came around one corner in a nice little slide and called me a hoodlum. Hey, it worked! My parents also saw us tailgating the Vette. I'm not sure my mother is going to watch any more stages after that.
At lunch, we had slipped from 13th to 21st due to our slow times on 3 and 4. Fair enough, we're mostly looking to finish and hopefully bring home a Targa plate. That is not a problem so far, but there are still two long days left. Janel's doing her homework right now and I'm going to hit the sack. We have a 2 hour transit before the first stage tomorrow, and we're leaving the hotel at 6 am. That's in 8 hours. G'night.
entry 32 - tags: leg 3 | | |  | September 18, 2008 - Miatas are not big cars, especially when filled with roll cage and other bits and pieces of rally equipment.
If we don't have a chance to put the helmets in the trunk, Janel uses them as a foot rest.
In this blurry picture, you can see the setup of the Coralba. We're on a transit, but the display's the same. The upper left shows our current speed. Lower left is the Pilot display, telling us if we're ahead or behind our target speed. Here it shows that if we crossed the finish line right now we'd be 35 seconds behind. The main display is an odometer that shows distance right to the meter.
entry 33 - tags: leg 3 | | |  | September 18, 2008 - We had lunch at the Barbour historic site today.
It's absolutely gorgeous, and the weather was perfect. It was like walking around in a postcard. To add to the fun, a Grand Touring team got married. The best man and maid of honour were also running the race, as is the "Faster Pastor" who performed the ceremony.
entry 34 - tags: leg 3 | | |  | September 18, 2008 - After lunch and a wedding, I added just a touch more ride height to the back of the car.
This is an attempt to keep it from bottoming out without affecting the high-speed stability.
entry 35 - tags: leg 3 | | |  | September 18, 2008 - Approaching the Corvette at a rapid pace.
We requested that our penalty points be removed because he didn't see us and held us up, but it was denied. It's unlikely to make any difference in the end, and it did provide some entertaining in-car video footage.
entry 36 - tags: leg 3 | | |
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THE DIARY