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 | |  | January 14, 2009 - There was an announcement of a tire rule change for the Targa in 2009.
R compounds - such as my Toyo RA1s - are no longer allowed. In fact, the tires must have a wear rating of at least 200, which gets rid of a range of popular sticky street tires such as the Falken Azenis and the Bridgestone RE01R. There's an exception for cars built before 1950 and those with stock 10" tires. The number of tires available to be used for the event has also jumped from 6 to 8, although with the harder required rubber that's not a big deal.
This means I'd probably end up running on a Hankook Ventus R-S2, although I haven't done a big search for other options. It would also make it much harder to meet the target times, which is probably the goal. Is it an improvement? Well, it's certainly a change.
entry 646 - tags: tires, regulations, 2009 | | | September 8, 2009 - Targa 2009 starts this weekend.
I wish I was going to be there and I've been daydreaming about it more and more in the last few weeks, but so it goes. As we said right from the start, we always knew this was liable to be a one-time race for us. The cost of taking part is just so high - and not just in terms of money. Someday we'll be back. In the meantime, I'll be trying to live vicariously as much as possible.
Matthew Oldford, who ran a turbo Integra in the Open Class last year, posted a new video that shows the event pretty well from inside and outside the car. Just what I needed, something else to get me all wound up even further about the race. Watch for us at a couple of spots!
entry 697 - tags: video, 2009 | | |  | September 13, 2009 - The 2009 Targa is underway!
Janel and I have been comparing notes on what we were doing a year ago - "should be starting the first stage of the Prologue about now" and the like. Sigh. According to the organizers, about 60 cars started this year. I can't offer any inside info on how the race is doing, but I will post my reactions to what we're seeing.
Gordon Sleigh is once again providing daily photos so the rest of us can live vicariously. You can follow on his site. He took the Escort photo.
Results can be found on the event site. No times for the Prologue are given, but the starting order for Leg 1 tells us who was quick. Of course, the experienced drivers have an advantage as the Flatrock stage is a very familiar one. Will this experience hold?
As I've said in the past, I think a Mk 1 Escort has the potential to be a very competitive car in the Targa. Quick, well-developed as a factory rally car and old enough to have lots of time to complete the stages. Paul Horton was running in a rally-prepped Civic last year. This year, he brought this little beastie along. I think he's going to have a lot of fun and may do very well.
entry 698 - tags: 2009 | | | September 13, 2009 - I just found the raw times for the Prologue - it's a different timing setup than last year (well, last year I read the sheets posted up on the board, but still...).
Looks like Stillen was indeed fastest on the Flatrock stage by about 5 seconds. However, Jud Buchanan in his monster Acadian was only 12 seconds back, and Jud runs in class 4. Jud's finished 2nd a bunch of times, will this be his year?
Looks as if the Escort finished only 2 seconds behind last year's winners, the 2002 - but with that car in 4 MS Large and the Escort in 4 MS Small, that means the Escort is ahead.
Not that today's times mean anything other than to determine a starting order, of course, but until the times are posted for tomorrow all I can do is play with these.
The friendly and quick Marc Lachapelle had an accident on the first Prologue stage. He and his codriver are fine, but there's no word as to whether they will be able to start tomorrow. I expect there's a Subaru team working very hard tonight.
entry 699 - tags: 2009 | | |  | September 14, 2009 - Day 1 is over, and 13 cars zeroed the day.
That's about the same as last year. Jim Kenzie in his new MINI wasn't amongst them, he may be having a little trouble sorting out the new car. Otherwise, there weren't a lot of big surprises. The Mk 1 Escort finished the day clean, I was happy to see.
This 911 was quick on the Prologue. Times aren't being posted for the stages during the day - only the penalties - so it's impossible to say how he's doing relative to the other cars. Given his overall speed and the fact that he's in class 3, he could be quite competitive. I'll be watching.
Steve Millen in the big GTR has discovered the car was too low and too soft for the battered Newfoundland tarmac. It's been lifted and stiffened (just like I plan to do to the Miata when I go back!) and later photos of the car may look dramatically different than the pre-event ones did. My big concern about that car was that it was set up wrong, and now I think it has a real chance. Will a modern car finally win Targa?
Photo, like all others in this year's updates, by Gordon Sleigh.
entry 700 - tags: 2009 | | |  | September 15, 2009 - Day 2 results are in!
Day 2 was possibly my favorite of the race, and the day I think I performed at my best. Not sure why, that's just the impression I have when I think back. And it had some of my favorite stages in it.
Leading Tickles was cancelled due to "communication problems". What a shame, that stage sticks in my mind strongly. Not the whole thing - it was about 15 km of blur, really - but the commitment I gave on it. That stage is the one I think of when I think of what it was like to run the Targa.
Roger Tillotsen and Steve Robertson were a couple of very cool guys from the UK who were a lot of fun to hang out with while waiting to start a stage, and they rolled their Impreza WRX Sti on Pleasantview. The guys aren't badly injured, but the car is pretty rough according to the official press release. According to the listings, they DNF'd Bobby's Cove. That's the same stage as Pleasantview in the opposite direction, so it's an easy mistake to make.
Glen Clarke has managed to stay penalty-free in his 911, so he's leading the race. Actually, there were a lot of people who were clean until Gander.
In second is Jed's Acadian with 1 second of penalties. Third is that green 911 I fingered earlier with 3 seconds. Then the GTR (6 seconds), the 2002 that won last year tied with a Camaro (8 seconds). The monster Audi, the Mk1 Escort, a 911 GT3 and a 911SC driven by an experienced competitor are all tied for 7th with 14 seconds. Pretty close race!
It looks like Jim Kenzie in the MINI is having a bit of trouble. Based on comments in his blog, he's having trouble finding grip due to a stiff setup. Janel and I both with him and Brian well, they were such a help to us.
Massive Audi tire smoke from the Stillen website.
entry 701 - tags: 2009 | | |  | September 17, 2009 - I love this picture.
Paul's on the edge - he's actually countersteering! Oh wow. I have to go back.
I've been posting my analysis of the 2009 race over on the Grassroots Motorsports forum. It's a good race this year, with very few penalties at the front end. Of course, no penalties means no changing of positions, as the only way to move up in the standings in the Targa is for the guy in front of you to make a mistake. The old 911 is still sitting in 2nd with the 2002 right behind, and Glen Clarke is still leading with only 4 seconds of penalties overall. I'm kind of hoping tomorrow will bring a bunch of penalties so that there's some better racing. Having 3-5 teams zero the entire day is impressive, but not that much fun.
I'm thinking the level of competition has stepped way up this year. The number of penalties is far down for everybody. Are the base times different, or has everyone just improved that much over the past year? Hard to say. We'd actually be in about the same position if we were running this year, assuming we had the same penalties after day 4.
entry 702 - tags: 2009 | | | September 28, 2009 - The Targa's been over for a week now.
The last day was stupendously wet by all accounts, and the leaderboard got all shaken up. At the end, Roy Hopkins in his BMW 2002 took the win for the third year in a row. The green 911 was right behind in second. The much-anticipated Nissan GTR finished in 6th, right behind Paul's beautiful Mk1 Escort. Glen Clarke's car was almost undriveable in the wet and he made the wise decision to back off. Stories abound of cars spinning on the transit sections on the Trans-Canada.
Naturally, there's a lot of fuss about handicapping. The Stillen-prepped GTR was supposed to win. Fast car, experienced driver. But not a driver with Targa Newfoundland experience, and the navigator was a rally novice. The Stillen folks are upset. Road and Track is upset. It appears that a number of the competitors - including Jim Kenzie, whose opinion carries a lot of weight with me - are upset. After all, no Modern car has ever won the race outright and the big orange Nissan was supposed to.
I wonder. I'm looking at last year's results where two of the top five cars were brand new models. Roy Hopkins reminded me that he came in second with a "Modern" car a few years back, only one second behind Bill Arnold.
I don't see anyone returning year after year to try to win with a Modern car. Roy built that 2002 specifically to win Targa, and he has a huge amount of experience in the event. The inexperience of the Stillen team did cost them some time early in the week, and in order to win you have to be perfect for the entire race.
Still, the complaining will be high-profile. I expect the article in R&T about the race will mention it, and Jim's already published something in the Toronto Star (or at least on their website, I don't see the paper itself). Everyone following the Stillen effort - a bunch of folks introduced to the Targa for the first time - will have heard it. Stillen is proclaiming that they are not interested in returning because of the unfairness.
It should be acknowledged that a number of teams are bringing cars that are built to the extent of the rules, as should be expected. However, these cars show the results of decades of development. Paul's 1968 Escort is likely not a car that could have been built in 1968 but the rule set assumes it is.
And of course the fact that the complaining is coming from a high-profile team means that the Targa organizers are more likely to listen. The rule set is usually fixed for 4 years, and 2010 marks the implementation of a new one. I doubt we'll see the end of handicapping, but we may see some massaged time factors and the allowable modifications for Modified might be tightened up. I think the latter might actually be the way to go, forcing some of the highly modified Classic cars into Open. Thankfully, I'm not the person who has to deal with this!
entry 704 - tags: 2009, rules | | | October 21, 2009 - The Stillen team has posted video.
Watching Brigus, a few things become obvious. First, that car simply could not put down any power in the wet. Stillen claimed 620 hp, a big task even for an AWD car in those conditions. The thing is a beast.
Secondly, I don't see how this team could have won. The navigation simply isn't up to par. There's nothing wrong with running a novice navigator - heck, we did it - but while Steve Millen is doing a great job dealing with it, he's simply not getting the sort of instructions he needs when he needs them. Watching Gander reinforces this. Put a top-tier navigator like Brian Bourbonniere in that car and I think it could have easily taken the win. Maybe some better wet tires too. But blaming the factors isn't right.
Want a comparison? Watch us through Brigus. Because of the radical difference in conditions, our time was only a few seconds slower than the GTR. Listen to the pacing of the navigation instructions and how clear they are. Remember, they're being delivered just as fast as in the GTR.
entry 705 - tags: 2009, video | | |
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