Targa Newfoundland 2010 on TV this weekend.
Posted by Ferdinand
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The 1-hour TV episode of Targa Newfoundland 2010 will be shown this weekend.
In the UK on MotorsTV: Friday April 8 - 22:05 In Canada on TSN: Saturday April 9, 11:30am In the USA on SPEED: Date not yet announced. Be sure to tune in. They will very likely include the in-car video of our crash... 
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Woot! Go Ferd!!
Sadly, I don't have cable. But let me know when it hits iTunes, Netflix, or YouTube 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1989 - E30 - M20 - Manual. Approximately 270,000 miles 2000 - E46 - M52TUB28 - Manual. Approximately 110,000 miles 
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It's on tomorrow! 11:30am on TSN.
Click on this image to see the animated drifto version... 
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Shame about the crash...you guys were so close to taking it all!
There is always next year and you know about that corner now 
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"Martin and Ferdinand were also rear fast".
You know, someday I hope someone says that about me immediately after talking about how fast a Porche twin turbo is ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1989 - E30 - M20 - Manual. Approximately 270,000 miles 2000 - E46 - M52TUB28 - Manual. Approximately 110,000 miles
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Thanks Ferdy, I'm on my third try and I'm almost 75% through. I'm sure it's my stone age computer but it's been great fun so far... what fun racing. I wish I was a few years younger and not quite so broke. \\One of the lunch stops at the beginning few days I thought I saw you at the table, you had a black cap with a red bill, a black jacket with a yellow strip down the sleeve. That was you, right? Well, back to my downloads, you're still doing well in the video but I fear all is not going to be so well soon for you guys .... 
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Yup. Ah yes, but the suspense builds when you know the end is near... 
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I thought that was you Ferdinand. I haven't been able to get the last section of the video but I'm heading in so I'll try it with the macbook. You guys were doing very well; third down from the top runner when my connection crapped out 
That looks like total fun racing
Cheers |
While Martin seems mildly surprised; I can't help notice you calmly searching the notes for mention of that ditch
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It was an unfortunate mistake. This was the first time we've ever crashed together. We've broken stuff on the car before, busted suspension, flat tires, etc., but always managed to either fix it or limp on to the next service opportunity to make repairs. But this was the first time we've crashed hard enough that we were unable to continue. And it had to happen when we were doing so well in such a huge event. In hindsight it was really dumb. We were in 2nd place in the standings, ahead of the 3rd place Lotus Exige team of Hartling/Beswick by only 8 seconds. They started into the stage 30 seconds ahead of us and then encountered some problem which put their engine into limp mode. That allowed us to catch them in the stage. We would have easily blown past them, except just then they managed to reset their engine computer, so they took off and the chase was on. We only needed to follow them to the finish line to extend our lead over them by those 30 seconds we'd made up on that stage. But Martin got a little carried away in the chase and was surprised to discover that our Nissan 240 doesn't corner nearly as well as a Lotus Exige. Bummer. It was an enormous disappointment. We knew we were stuck in a deep ditch, but we didn't realize yet just how much damage had been done to the car. The course closing car, medical, and sweep trucks shortly came by at the tail end of the line, stopped just long enough to confirm we weren't hurt, took one look at the deep ditch and decided they wouldn't be able to pull us out, and left! See you back in St.John's. After that we were on our own, with no cellphone coverage. On the previous corner we had passed a gas station at which we had seen a big bucket-loader. Still thinking we'd be able to continue if we could just get ourselves out of this ditch, I ran back down the hill to see if we could get him to pull us out of the ditch. Typical Newfoundlander, he jumped right in to help. It was only after he dragged the car out that we saw that the whole right side suspension, front and back, was comprehensively buggered. 
Meanwhile Christoph and the rest of our service crew, noticing that we hadn't shown up at our next meeting point, brought the truck and trailer and backtracked the course until they found us. The bucket-loader driver then swapped the big bucket attachment for a fork-lift so he could carry our car back down the hill to his shop, where he then helped stuff the car into our trailer.  
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Oh man, the indignity of it all, carried off by a fork lift....  that ain't going to grow back.
Seems to me I've seen that poor car in a similar pose before, could that be Ferdy? Still and all, you guys are lucky to have such an event within striking distance. Not to mention all of them you fellas run 
I'll try the video again tonight and see how it goes. Thank you, as always, for sharing these great events  
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I sure hope the car is fixable; this looks like a funeral procession...
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I wonder who Veronica is?
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I was wondering about that too. |
That's who he wants to be gentle  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1989 - E30 - M20 - Manual. Approximately 270,000 miles 2000 - E46 - M52TUB28 - Manual. Approximately 110,000 miles
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I get a little misty-eyed each time looking at that photo. We were soooo close... Targa is unique in that it's not necessarily the fastest car that wins, otherwise we wouldn't have had any hope of winning. It's who can run reliably all week and make the least mistakes. Each stage has a target time that you need to beat to "zero" that stage without penalties. If you're too slow, you take a penalty point for every second by which you've missed your target time. You get no credit for being quicker than the required time though. Ideally you only ever go just fast enough to achieve the target time. Driving banzai only uses up the tires, stresses the car, and increases the potential for avoidable mistakes. Once you have collected a penalty, you can't ever make it up by going faster on the next stage. You just have to hope that your competitors eventually collect more penalties than you. On the last couple of days the target times become pretty much impossible and then it turns into an all-out race to see who can get closest to zeroing their times. That's when the mistakes start coming. Going into the final day we were something like 36 seconds behind the leading team of Matt and Brian Oldford. But on already just the first long stage that morning we narrowed that gap by 18 seconds! It ain't over yet. If they make even a tiny slip somewhere, we might still win this. It was the 3rd place team of Hartling/Beswick in their very quick Lotus Exige that we were worried about more. They were only 8 seconds behind us. Then they had their electrical problems putting their engine into limp mode. No matter what time we scored on that stage, we knew they were going to collect 30 seconds more penalties than us after we caught them on the stage. That would have pretty much cemented 2nd place for us! We were already discussing how such an outstanding result might help us find potential sponsors, when we crashed. 
The car is fixed. We ran the Tall Pines Rally with it in November, and will be running in the Lanark Highlands Forest Rally three weekends from now. There was a lot of work required to repair the car though. See Martin's post in this thread: http://www.rallyanarchy.com/phorum/read.php?5,42716 - Cast steel upright - broke ball joint section right off - New shock - bent shaft and broke bottom eye right off - upper control arm - ripped apart - front upper link - ripped apart - Toe link bent to f**k, and ripped apart 
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"Veronica" was the character played by 17-yr-old Winona Ryder in the 1988 movie "Heathers", from which comes the classic quote, "F*** me gently with a chainsaw." See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ-3rikUQ34 In the excitement of the moment, Martin forgot to mention the chainsaw. |
Oh.. yeah. I hope I get up to see you some day Ferdy, I'd love to sit down and buy you a coffee or a beer
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