Tales from Targa
Newfoundland car rally a must-do for your bucket list
ST. JOHN’S NEWFOUNDLAND— The 17th annual Targa Newfoundland car rally started and ended with a Big Bang, and that was not just a Theory.
Targa first-timers Kevin Chaulk and Kent Stanway from Newfoundland were the very first car off on the first Prologue (practice) stage, and they went end-over-end after just a couple of klicks.
And Andrew and Bradley Nullmeyer smacked a fence in the very last stage, the infamous “Brigus,” the Bermuda Triangle of Targa which has claimed more than its share of victims over the years.
It was particularly tough for the Nullmeyers since they are Targa veterans, and I think were leading the Open category at the time.
All occupants in both cars were unhurt.
And by sheer coincidence, both were driving Subaru WRX STis.
As for who won which class, I’ll leave that for you to look up on the Targa website, targanl.com.
Because the real winners are everyone who took part in this amazing event. Where else do the police close the roads and tell you to drive faster?
And the stories... these will go on forever. Sadly, I only have room for a few of them here.
Among the top tales for 2018 is that of the Wong brothers, Jason and Donald, from San Francisco. They heard about Targa and decided to give it a shot. They had acquired a 1961 Morris Mini Minor — yes, the teeny weeny one — and decided to put an Acura Integra engine into it. Twice the power and probably four times the reliability, and that’s from someone speaking from experience with old Minis...
As is often the case with competition cars, life gets in the way of the preparation schedule, and they were essentially finishing the car as they were towing it across the continent.
Among the things they had to sort out before the start was the suspension alignment. As always happens in Targa, various crew members from other teams helped out, including Dan Sprongl who with his brother Frank have built all my rally cars at FourStar Motorsports in Georgetown Ontario.
The Wong brothers’ Mini was decently quick, although an engine speed limiter meant they topped out about 150 km/h, which held them back on the longer, faster stages where the rest of us could (and most of us did) reach 200.
On the first stage after lunch on the last day, they were starting just ahead of our car with the usual 30 second gap. About 1.7 km into the stage, we came across the Mini, stopped at the side of the road, with the brothers scrambling out to set up the triangles to warn following cars.
As Targa rules require, we also stopped to make sure they were OK. They were, so we carried on.
Turns out the car had broken a half shaft, putting them out of the event.
You’d think this would have bummed them out.
But they somehow cobbled up a fix using some vise grips (I don’t want to know...) and they were able to limp to the ceremonial finish line.
Despite their travails, they were both terminally cheerful about the whole experience, and were given a rousing ovation at the Awards Banquet.
Another team from San Francisco consisted of Martin Pond and Chris Seiwald in Pond’s spectacular 1980 Ford Fairmont, entered in the Grand Touring (TSD — Time Speed Distance) competition.
Martin relishes showing up at events in unusual cars, and this one fit the bill perfectly. Essentially, the Fairmont was a Mustang underneath a prosaic sedan body, so there are tons of performance parts available for it. This Fairmont seemed to have most of them — it went great and sounded even better.
The car was also immaculately prepared, looking more ready for a Concours d’Elegance than a car rally over rough Newfoundland roads.
Their adventures actually started well before they got to Newfoundland. Their transportation plans called for the car to be sent by train to the American east coast, then up to St. John’s. While awaiting the train swap, the car was in a warehouse, whose roof decided to cave in, also severely damaging the roof of the Fairmont. Even with a few scratches from hasty repairs, the car still looked gorgeous, and the smiles never left Martin’s and Chris’s faces.
Not even when they discovered that some bolts had come loose in the car’s rear end.
Again as is typical of Targa, other teams’ crews including our own from Centennial College helped fix the car so it could motor on to a well-deserved third place in Grand Touring.
Simon Tomlinson of Toronto must have set some kind of Targa record, running through three cars and three navigators in the weeklong event. He began in his own very quick Volkswagen Golf R. His original navigator Stewart Wigg had to leave just prior to the event for a family emergency, so multi-time Targa vet Gordon Maxwell took over in the right seat.
He had a Chevrolet rental car for the week so he ran that on the Wednesday with the Fast Tour (non-competitive) group. By this time, multi-time Targa vet Gordon Maxwell was navigating.
But Simon made a deal to rent the ultra-fast MINI of Billy Anderson who has won the event overall a couple of times. The deal included Billy’s usual navigator Max Cline Abrahams for the last two days.
Simon justly deserved the Spirit of Targa award given to the competitor who faces the most trials and tribulations to remain in the event, which he and his three navigators shared.
All of the host communities earned our heartfelt thanks for giving up their roads for a couple of hours so we can have our fun.
Sure, we got the occasional “John McEnroe one-half of the victory sign’’ salute from a few people who resent our intrusion into their lives, never mind the literally millions of dollars we have brought to the province in ferry boat, hotel, gasoline and restaurant business.
But for the most part, the reception is typically Newfoundland — warm and generous.
All the venues were excellent, but a couple stand out.
The tiny town of Lord’s Cove hosted a stage for the first time, and they put on a great show, featuring a fantastic lunch cooked and served by our gracious hosts.
And an all-time favourite stage of mine is Harbour Mille which runs some 13 km up and down some fantastic hills to this tiny village for a wonderful breakfast. We thank you all, ever so... Our little car, a 2014 Nissan Juke RS NISMO Turbo, owned by Sandy Liguori of Woodchester Nissan/Infiniti in Mississauga, ended up against two other cars in the Targa Modern class. Both of them were owned by the Hume team, which we joined for the first time. The Humes were celebrating their tenth anniversary of successes in Targa. Our thanks also to them for their support. One of those cars, a BMW M3 Dinan driven by multi-time Targa veteran John Hume Jr. from Toronto and navigated by Justin Crant from St. John’s, won this group. Another BMW M3, driven by New Zealand native / Vancouver resident Garry Bimler and navigated by rally rookie Allan Cullen from Hawaii, finished second.
Garry had not rallied seriously for many years, but obviously had not totally forgotten.
Both Bimmers had various issues during the week, including a broken serpentine belt in John Jr.’s car just before the start of that final Brigus stage. Again, the Centennial crew leapt into the fray, fixing it just in time.
Garry and Allan’s car broke a front suspension brace early on, but they managed to hold it together.
Our little Juke? It now has 13,500 km on it, all but 200 of those in four years of Targa. We just put gasoline in our car...
Yeah, ragging even on your teammates is part of the fun.
The Juke was navigated this year by several-time Targa veteran Justin Russell from Mount Pearl Newfoundland. I’m trying not to take it personally that he was my fourth navigator in my last four entries in Targa... But he never screamed once, and we got along very well. We figured that given our little front-wheel drive economy car had less than half the horsepower of the two cars that beat us, we didn’t do badly finishing third!
The only thing that still puzzles me is why there were only some 20-odd entries this year, the lowest total ever. Nowhere else in North America with the possible exception of various events in Mexico can you have this much fun in a car with your clothes on.
And here, the police are generally on your side, and are not affiliated with the narcos...
There must be hundreds if not thousands of eligible cars within a couple of days’ schlep to Newfoundland.
Targa Tasmania, the granddaddy of such events and the spiritual father of Targa Newfoundland, is no easier to get to, and they get entries in the hundreds.
So if you are one of those hundreds if not thousands, put Sept. 14-21, 2019, into your phone right now as “BUCKET LIST — TARGA NEWFOUNDLAND.” You won’t be sorry. We’ll see you there.