Day 2 - Stage 3 - Pleasantview 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KbuRB00slo This is the same stage as Bobby's Cove, but run the other direction starting from Pleasantview. It was another run with no problems whatsoever. It's very dangerous to become complacent though. That inevitably results in silly screwups...by Ferdinand - Community Forum
Day 2 - Stage 2 - Bobby's Cove: While we were running the Appleton stage, our "support crew" scampered ahead to meet us in Point Leamington at the start of Stage 2, Bobby's Cove. They were there to offer "support" in the way of smiles, cheers, and thumbs up, while filming us launching from the start line. As we did the run out to the end of the road in Pleasaby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Day 2 - Stage 1 - Appleton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6taUZItVQFw Day 2 was gorgeous and sunny, and challenging. On Day-2 our allowable time window tightens up a bit to +/- 20 seconds. That's still a very generous window, but our goal was to be as close to zero as possible at all time controls. Take advantage of all the "easy" stages to practise for the harder stages tby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Day 1 - Stage 8 - Eastport 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhhc7a7f9Gg We watched all of the Targa cars launching into the stage. That was cool. Chris and my mom were watching from the first Tee-Right into the stage and caught us on video. After this second pass on the Eastport stage we had lunch at the Legion Hall. Afterwards we had a free transit to Gander, so Christoph got to chauby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Day 1 - Stage 7 - Eastport 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEZQ8WIvaPE "Grey skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face." Things were pretty grim this morning, what with the monsoon weather and our reluctant support crew. But now it's all sunny skies again. The ladies met us for lunch in Eastport after these two stages. Big relief. They're having a good timeby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Day 1 - Stage 6 - Port Blandford: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTwBdZAa1gA Stage 5, Adeytown, was no longer on the schedule. So we went straight to Stage 6, Port Blandford. We thought we were right on schedule here, only to cross the line 2 seconds late. Not really sure why. But it was a bit disconcerting, considering that by the end of the week we would need to be within +/- 3 secondsby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Day 1 - Stage 4 - Osprey Trail West: Another uneventful stage, starting here.by Ferdinand - Community Forum
Day 1 - Stage 3 - Argentia 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2Orcswf2jI The second Argentia stage was run a bit quicker, at something like 54 km/h. It was still very easy. I'm glad we got these ones out of the way, because they're relatively boring compared to the next days'. I don't want to turn you off thinking all the videos are this boring. Day-1 is designed toby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Day 1 - Stage 2 - Placentia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hnm4VRq7mw From Argentia, we go straight across the street to the start of the Placentia stage. This stage was also relatively easy, with an average speed of only 53 km/h. But it's only easy on the straightaways. Then it goes into a whole series of acute left, acute right, etc. and it suddenly becomes much harder to maintainby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Day 1 - Argentia 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge9GxF1NEFE We safely made our start time in Argentia only to find the stage delayed because the stage crew was having difficulty tying down their equipment. All their sign boards kept flying away... The Argentia stage is run on the grounds of an old military base. Some of these "roads" are obviously no longer maintained. Iby Ferdinand - Community Forum
I enlisted my wife, Chris, and my mom to come with us on the trip in a second car, our Subaru Ouback, to act as our "support crew". It is really handy to have a second car, because at the end of each day the rally car is put on display and locked up overnight in the local arena. It's nice to have a second car available for going back and forth to dinner and the hotel etc. The idby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Quoterkjlets see if I can put one of my favorites up here A friend of mine in high school had a Ducati 900 Super Sport. He was really serious about this bike and had full leathers and helmet in matching blue and silver colour scheme. We worked together as pump jockeys at a gas station on the highway. Whenever he showed up for work, he'd come roaring off the highway laying this monby Ferdinand - Community Forum
QuoteEarendilFerd, if I may add a request to the usual event write-up, could we get a brief description of the car, and what you did to it? Or have you posted such information in another forum I could take a gander at? I bought the car in March for US$7500 from "alexd" on r3vlimited. See this thread for details. It needed a transmission. I found a used one for $100. Otherwise, iby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Confederation Park in St. John's was set up as a spectator special stage starting here. This one wasn't scored and didn't count for anything other than practice and entertainment value. We could go as often as we liked and as fast or slow as we liked. Of course everyone pushed as hard as possible. We were warned to watch out for a "bump" crossing the lane in front oby Ferdinand - Community Forum
QuoteEarendilThe intermediate check points you say you don't know where they are, but can you see them coming? Or does the timing crew catch you coming around a corner and tag you then? The ITC locations are clearly marked with a yellow ITC board, which is supposed to be visible as you pass it. On the Prologue day the boards were visible from quite a distance. Later in the week they weren&by Ferdinand - Community Forum
Prologue Day - Flatrock 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny5cOIGyVV0 We lined right up again for a second pass on the Flatrock stage, heading North-East from here. On this second run, we had the same easy average speed target, but now with just a +/- 3 second window. This sort of precision is a lot tougher to maintain. Here we start getting into issues of improperly calibrated watches aby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Prologue Day - Flatrock 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz39wdai96g For the first Prologue stage, the GT competitors were given a fairly easy target speed, and an allowable time window of +/- 10 seconds. This was supposed to represent a typical Day-3 challenge. The first portion is relatively simple. We just have to go hard initially to get up to our proper average speed, then hold thaby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Prologue Day - Ceremonial Start: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitMIrgrJnk The ceremonial start is at the Harbourfront of St John's Newfoundland. Cars are waved off one by one to make their way out of the city to the first Prologue stage. Several of the novice teams, unfamiliar with the style of route notes provided, or unfamiliar with the streets of St. John's, promptly got lostby Ferdinand - Community Forum
Alrighty then, I've managed to process the first batch of in-car videos. Prologue Day is just for practice. It counts for nothing. We were told the scoring results for the Prologue Day would be used to determine the start order for the first day of competition, but evidently that just applied to the Targa Category, not to our Grand Touring (GT) Category. We started in numerical order bby Ferdinand - Community Forum
QuoteDave_GIn thinking about this I was reminded of one of my favorite YouTube clips of the epic battle between Gilles Villeneuve and Rene Arnoux at the 1979 French Grand Prix.... I still miss that guy. http://www.iprimus.ca/~trauttf/Gilles/ The tires on Villenuve's Ferrari were completely shot by that point, and Arnoux's Renault was running low on fuel and experiencing fuel pick upby Ferdinand - Technical Forum
I quite like the ABS on my new E30. My old black 86 325e had no ABS and I didn't miss it. My wife's 2002 Subaru Outback has ABS and I detest it with a passion. It is waaaay too sensitive and kicks in way too early, and then it feels like it's not braking at all. I hate it so much that I always pull the ABS fuse on the Subaru before the first snow flies. The ABS on this newby Ferdinand - Technical Forum
QuoteEarendilKnowing the visual state of my calipers up front, this isn't surprising. What is surprising to me is that a seized caliper would cause an increase in pressure on the pad/rotor? I would have thought the brake would either not engage, or would fail to disengage. More likely, the caliper on the opposite front side is seized, providing less braking on that side. Under maximum brakby Ferdinand - Technical Forum
Quotenomis3613It sounds to me like the rubbing is the steering wheel on the surround, but only happens occasionally so I reckon something is flexing somewhere in the steering system to cause the occasional rubbing. It's got worse since I put the new wheel on, but then again I hadn't driven it for a month before fitting the new wheel, so maybe it's not. There is a spring loaded pinby Ferdinand - Technical Forum
We won! We are the 2009 Targa Newfoundland GT-Class winners. The only team of the entire event to escape with zero penalty points. Stories, photos, in-car videos, etc. still to come. We're still decompressing. Awards banquet tonight, then hit the road to catch the ferry back to the mainland and long drive home...by Ferdinand - Community Forum
Good photo of us on Prologue Day here: We survived Day-1 with no penalties, but so did pretty much everybody else in Grand Touring. Day-1 is relatively easy, but it start getting tougher tomorrow.by Ferdinand - Community Forum
All stickered up and ready to go!by Ferdinand - Community Forum
QuoterkjYou're with Martin I'm thinking... Nope. I'm driving my red 1990 325i with Christoph co-driving. See entry #1035: http://www.targanewfoundland.com/drivers/cars/2009/1035/ Martin is here too though. He's an official this year, driving the course closing car. Daily photos are available here: http://pics.spoon.org/gallery2/v/Motorsports/Targa/Daily2009/ Theby Ferdinand - Community Forum
We're in St. John's Newfoundland. Registration is tomorrow, Prologue Day on Sunday, then the competition runs Monday to Friday, with the awards banquet 2,200 kms later next Saturday. No results up yet (obviously), but you should be able to follow along here: http://www.targanewfoundland.com/by Ferdinand - Community Forum
QuoteEarendilI'm assuming that regular Sports seats are a bolt in operation for my car. However does it matter that he has a 2 door and mine is a 4? Outside of having the less useful fold up seat feature, that is. Actually, I noticed that the seat belt anchors to the floor differently. On mine it goes into the seat, on his it attaches to a bar that allows it to slide forwards/backwards. Anby Ferdinand - Technical Forum
Welcome back.by Ferdinand - Community Forum