Leg 5 – The Great Equalizer and a third straight win for Hopkins and Hugues

There was a steady rain over Marystown as teams filed out of the arena for the long transit to the first stage of the ultimate day of competition in this 8th edition of Targa Newfounbdland. The Subaru Canada Targa Rally Team had a surprise for their driver that morning. As I walked over to our Targa STI, I saw that it now had two brand-new right-side doors with only a few decals and numbers missing: “you have a whole new car this morning” said co-driver and chief mechanic Stewart Hoo.

Over the past twenty years, I have been quite fortunate to drive a number of race and rally cars in competition, as a guest and a journalist. My family and my closest friends and colleagues can attest that my desire to bring each of these cars to the finish line, without the slightest damage or scratch, bordered on the obsessive. My crash in the Prologue this year put a major dent in my virtually-spotless record, to say the very least. Pun intended.

• Also: Subaru Rally Team Canada at Targa Newfoundland 2009
• Also: Pre-Targa hoopla, registration and last-minute fixes

To say that I was upset and disappointed with myself on Sunday, lying in that ambulance, strapped to a hard board from head to toe, with the ambulance’s sirens wailing as we headed for the hospital in St. John’s is putting it very mildly. I was devastated, very simply, then believing that I had destroyed a team’s tireless efforts and Subaru’s dream of shooting for that elusive first overall victory at Targa. Yet, hours only later, I was at the wheel of the Targa STI, ready to take the start with a new co-driver.

And now, five days later, with a car that felt strong and would soon look almost brand-new once again, I had a second shot at bringing her home to the finish in St. John’s in virtually perfect shape, with a healthy crew and an honourable finishing result. But Mother Nature soon made sure it wouldn’t be easy.

Nine stages were scheduled for Targa 2009’s fifth and final leg, and all would be driven in ‘road condition 3’, on wet pavement, or worse. Just before the first start of Boat Harbour, a very promising new stage with a fast, flowing layout, Glen Clarke expressed concern at his Porsche 911’s ability to handle the wet roads with these wide rear tires. Stewart tried his best to reassure him: “with all this weight at the rear for traction you’ll be fine” but Glen would soon be proven right.

Our Targa STI felt good on this first run, in spite of the slippery conditions, especially on a short section of wooden bridge that had us sliding sideways for a moment, in spite of my best precautions. We even caught Tom Collingwood and his cousin and co-driver Chris Collingwood, in the former’s spectacular orange Porsche 911 GT3RS, about halfway through the stage. Even though safety and reaching the finish line in St. John’s remained our absolute goals for the day, Stewart could not help but note that catching the Collingwoods could benefit us since they were immediately ahead of us in the current overall standings.

During the long stopover in the gorgeous Petite Forte community, as competitors and officials regrouped for the run back on the same course, the rain started falling harder. Stewart and I decided to try disconnecting the front sway bar to improve front-end grip. This proved more effective than we wished. The combination of quicker and sharper steering and thicker standing water was properly hair-raising. Quite simply, it was by far the scariest stage in my three years at Targa and quite possibly my worst time ever in a car. The STI was a twitchy, nervous handful even in a straight line, at a steady speed.

But we were not alone in our predicament. We soon caught and handily passed the Collingwood Porsche and this time, the much slower speeds meant that we would be gaining these thirty seconds on them in the overall standings. But our immediate concern was to simply survive this stage and complete it without harm. A few hundred meters from the finish, we were even caught by Steve Millen and Mike Monticello in their Nissan GT-R. After it was all done, we heard horror stories for all the teams, including Glen Clarke who would later swear that he was unable to go faster than 90 km/h all day. Rain is known as The Great Equalizer in racing circles. That day, it would cost Glen Clarke and co-driver Andy Proudfoot a shot at the overall win which would have been Glen’s second after his victory in 2006.

It was a white-knuckle experience throughout, even while simply driving in transit on the TransCanada Highway. Stewart and his boys kept working on the car to finally make it stable in these atrocious conditions. They first reconnected the front stabilizer bar and later added toe-in to the front and rear wheels, at Stewart’s request. We also benefited greatly from Keith Townsend’s extensive rally experience and his keen knowledge of Targa itself. He remembered using the packed, gravel surface of the road shoulders to great advantage on the Osprey Trail East stage in similar conditions while in contention for the overall win in 2006. It worked impeccably indeed, and I would use this technique with great success for the rest of our rally.

Stewart’s tweaks also made the STI infinitely better on any wet surface from that point on. We completed our stages one by one, according to plan. Our relief, after – carefully – blowing by the ‘flying finish’ on Marine Drive is hard to describe, after everything we had experienced in the past five days. Going from ambulance stretcher to the finish of Targa Newfoundland is an experience I probably will never top.

Stewart and I were truly elated while carefully driving our tough, fast and gritty Targa STI into St. John’s for the official finish on the Harbour. I thanked him repeatedly, for the numerous miracles he performed to keep us in the rally, and for the outstanding job he did as a co-driver, jumping in cold, on the morning of Leg One. After performing a couple of ‘steam-outs’ (how else should I be calling a ‘burn-out’ on wet pavement?) on the finish line, we parked the STI and jumped out to celebrate with our teammates.

We then learned that Roy Hopkins and Adrienne Hugues had taken their third straight overall win in the Targa competition with only 10 seconds of total penalties. The German team of Michael Stoschek and Philipp Spaeth had earlier lost their provisional lead after hitting one of the many fences in the extremely tight Brigus stage and finished with 23 seconds of penalties. Tied in third place was the thundering duo of Jud Buchanan and Jim Adams in the legendary 1967 Acadian Canso and Bob Yuillie and Kirk Alexander in their 1969 Chevrolet Camaro, with a score of 33 seconds each.

The best-placed Modern car was Steve Millen and Mike Monticello’s 2009 Nissan GT-R with 1:21 of penalties, in sixth place overall. And we finished 12th overall in our Targa STI, with 5:18 in penalties. And in Grand Touring competition, the father-son team of Ferdinand and Christoph Trauttmansdorff won in their BMW 325i with a perfect score of 0 penalties.

FINAL OVERALL RESULTS – TARGA COMPETITION

FINAL OVERALL RESULTS – TOURING COMPETITION