Hi everyone, As many of you know, for the last 2 years Casey Holzman and I have competed in the Targa Newfoundland Road Rally (www.targanewfoundland.com). This year, my wife Nadine and I will be entering our own team - NaroEscape Motorsports #414 1971 Porsche 914-6 GT nicknamed "Huey". Information on the car can be seen at www.exclusive-motors.com, click on About Us, click on Bob's Cars, then click on Huey, the yellow and blue 914. You can also read a bit about the news release of our entry in News and Notes. The 2006 edition of Targa Newfoundland is September 9-16. David Fender and I will be leaving on the 6th trailering our car and the car of Sea Eagle Racing, entered by Harold Seagle and my business partner Stan Pendergraft. After a 27+ hour drive, 14 hour ferry, and another 2 hour drive, we will be in St John's, Newfoundland for registration day on the 9th. (Nadine will be flying up). If you go to the Targa Newfoundland site, click on "What is Targa?" and there is a link to a Real Time Tracker where you can follow all the progress of our team and all the others. We really want to thank Continental Tire for sponsoring us on this venture, as well as Bill Dunster at Autobahn Collision and John Forbes at Black Forest Racing. Without the tireless effort of these two and their staffs, we would not have be able to get Huey in Targa shape in time. Anyway, I just thought I would update everyone as to what were we'll be spending our vacation this year. Wish us luck, follow our efforts, and hopefully we'll come back with some sort of trophies!!! -Bob (and Nadine) Saville NaroEscape Motorsports Targa Entry #414 Pictures: the first 2 are in Targa Newfoundland trim, getting a test run at Watkins Glen. The last is in road course racing trim but without the sponsor logos. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Now that's what I call living! Be carefull, we've seen the past video of the 911 jumping the intersection and kapow!
You're kidding! Tell us what happened and attach the video, I've seen it several times on TV. That was some wild ride...
Awesome! I heard about you today from a a customer (who's name escapes me at the moment) with a 997 that spends plenty of time @ VIR. I'll make sure to keep an eye for you throughout the event.
I will when I get back. Been too busy getting ready, and we leave at 7am Wednesday. Follow us on the Targa Newfoundland website. We'll be back in about 2 weeks. -Bob
Good Luck up in Newfoundland. I guess we might have to start calling ya "Dukes of Hazzard".... Yee Haw.
Good luck, Bob! Give my best to my pals Jeff and David in the RX-8! (Or at least kick Jeff in the shins for me.)
Good luck! As a strategic choice, why didn't you choose an AWD vehicle? (I suppose it's a tarmac event, but from what I've seen it's very bad asphalt)
OK, quick update...the hotel has internet access. After day 2, we are 15th overall, and 3rd in class. We had a bad 1st day and got nicked for a bunch of penalty points here and there. The main reason was that the shifter wasn't working quite that well (it IS a 914 after all) and i was having issues getting it into 2nd gear, so that really screwed us up. We had a pretty good day Tuesday, so there is hope... However.... It's supposed to rain REALLY HARD on Wednesday...I guess some sort of hurricane is headed this way (I've been out of touch with the world since last Wednesday). anyway, it should be interesting. We'll see how these Continental Tires work! the car is now running awesome. To answer the AWD question: yes, there is some merit to that. But...for one, I know how to drive a 914 pretty well, and i like driving them. And two, a Targa event is different than a flat out rally. You have a time to BEAT based on your car classification. and classifications are based on model year. So, the older the car, the 'slower' the time on a given stage. the newer cars have to beat a much faster time. So, for example, on the first stage of Wednesday, a newer Subaru will have to do the stage in 3:07 or less. With the 71 914, we have to do it in 3:27 or less. So the idea is to figure out how to exploit the rules to get the oldest car, with the best handling and power combination. anyway, it's late, and we're tired. Hope to give another update later in the week. -Bob #414 Targa Newfoundland
OK, we made it through the week. We did pretty good on Friday, but lost a position from Thursday, and ended up placing 11th overall. We were first "Rookies".....all of the top 15 or so have lots of experience in this. When we get back, we'll put together some of the videos we got and have a "Targa Experience" gathering at Exclusive Motors. We videoed just about every stage, some a bit boring and long, others pretty exciting. The carnage from the week (that we know of): -One Porsche 944 in the ocean (and he made it to the finish!!!) -One Nissan that flipped and rolled down the side of a mountain -One Acura that flipped and slammed into the side of the mountain -One Echo that rolled into a ditch -and a whole bunch of other minor (and some major) problems. Nobody was hurt at all!! But overall, we had a GREAT time, no divorce and learned a lot for next year. In the top 11 places, 4 were Porsches. You can check out the final standings at http://www.rallyscoring.com/results/2006/Targa/index.htm I'll update more when we get back. Tonight is the awards ceremony, and tomorrow we trek back. Should be back very late Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. -Bob Saville
Well, after 2000 plus miles on the return trip, David and I got home Tuesday night. First let me say that David Fender was awesome in his support for our two teams. Between transporting the cars up and back, waiting at the end of each stage to make sure we're OK, and spending long nights doing the maintenance needed on the cars each night, his help was invaluable.... So, a summary of the week......what can I say. This event is the most amazing, exciting, frustrating, tireing, and rewarding "non-professional" race you will ever do. With racing on the track, you're out there for at most a few hours? you have pit stops, and you're racing against others that you have a chance to maybe catch. Not here. If you have an issue during the day and can't fix it quickly between stages, your week is done. You can't "make up" time... so there is a lot of luck as well as skill involved. I'm going to post a full report on the Exclusive Motors website, but here are a few highlights; When we opened up the trailer as we arrived in Newfoundland, we found brake fluid all over the floor. It turns out that one of the piston seals in a rear caliper had failed and started leaking fluid everywhere. Luckily, our local Newfoundland crew had a new seal, so we did a quick rebuild on Saturday. Sunday was Prologue day, which is basically practice and qualifying for starting positions. We run 2 stages that allows the drivers and navigators to acclimate themselves together, and allows the organizers to get a feel for who's fast and who's not. Monday starts the real competition. So, we leave the hotel Monday morning, and I can't find first gear. hmmm....I know I can fix it. So when we get up to the first stage, I have some time to get the tools and fix the problem. I borrow a 13mm socket and adjust the shift rod. Cool, all fixed. Unfortunately, as we get to the start line, I find that I turned the rod too far and now I ONLY have 1st and reverse!!! Oh crap! And I gave the socket back to the guy and he's already left. Instant PANIC!!! Nadine and I run all over looking for another socket, which I finally find with the Police officer that follows the event around. I fix it, and we ace the stage! It takes most of the rest of the day to get my heart rate down, but we do OK after day one (we got tagged for speeding in a "speed restriction zone" in which the speed limit is 80 kph, we were going 83kph) The rest of the week was uneventful as far as car issues go. Wednesday we drove through hurricane Florence, which made it interesting. Going into Friday, we were 10th place. We had a good Friday, but the guy in 11th did a little better than us, and kicked us down to 11th by the end of the event. As I said in the previous post, we learned a lot for next year and should do much better.... If any of you out there are interested in competing in this next year, give me a call and we can discuss what you need and what to do. I have a ton of video and information to help out. We'll probably have a group of 4 or 5 teams going up next year, so we can work at sharing some resources.. Keep an eye on www.exclusive-motors.com and we'll have more stuff up there soon. -Bob Saville Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
a few other pictures... Yes, they wash your car for you every night!! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Way to go Bob and Dave! How fast were some of the stages? Flat out anwhere? Is it timed by speed? How did the car end up in the ocean? More pics please.
The stages are a mix of just about everything: long winding roads through the countryside where you can reach max speed on your car (though the FIA legal limit on rally speeds is 200 kph, or about 124mph), and town stages where you're blowing through these little fishing villages as fast as you can. The long winding ones are a bit scary because you're going as fast as you can, heading up over a crest, with no idea what's on the other side. The roads are not in the greatest shape, so you're also bouncing along at speed. You ever see the hydroplane boats that basically seem to just touch the tops of the waves? That's us sometimes it feels like... Here's how the whole event works: You have a route book for each day. You leave the arena in the town your in at your assigned "Out" time, and head to the first stage. You get in line based on the out times, with 30 seconds between each car. When the start light counts down to green, you take off and run the stage. The navigator (my wife Nadine) has instructions as to where major road changes that the course clerks felt you needed (turns, hard bends in the road, bridges, etc). Sometimes on the long stages, there could be 10k between instructions, but the road is twisting and turning all the time...you're "driving what you see" (or blind, depending on how you interprete it). There's a light sensor at the end of the run that trips for you stage time. You get your time, and head onto the next stage. Sometimes it's close, sometimes it's 4 hours away. Then you repeat this all over again for 5 days and about 40 stages. The cars are classified by year, engine size and modifications. For example, we ran in category 4 (1968-1971), large (>2.0 liter), modified (stock 914-6 was only 2.0 liter, ours is 2.2 liters). They have a Master Base time for each stage, then based on your class, there is a multiplier. Our multiplier was 1.1035, so lets just say the Master Base Time was 4 minutes for a stage. Using our multiplier, we would get 4:25 to run the stage. Anything under our time we get "0" penalty points, and for every second over our time, we get one penalty point. All together for the week, we got 8:22 in penalty points, the first place team got 2:30 in points. so you don't have to be the fastest, you just have to be the best relative to your given handicapping factor. FYI, new cars in class 9 usually have a 1 mulitplier, so they pretty much run the master base time. So, I could do it in 4:24 and win if they do it in 4:01, which would be a 1 second penalty for them. How did Craig end up in the ocean? Well, up in these little out of the way villages, there really isn't such thing as guard rails. We almost ended up where he did too. Picture yourself buzzing down a small hill, between houses to a "T" in the road. Instructions say make a right turn at the "T", "Caution - Exposure". Exposure is the catch all word for "water, cliff, open area" and just about every other place you do not want to be but could end up in if not careful. Well, all the early cars in the stage managed to make the turn and kick up a ton of gravel into the road. We slid through it and stopped just before the road fell away into the water. Craig didn't, spun the car, and skidded into the bay. I think it was only 4 or 5 feet of water, but suffice it to say, 944's were not meant to be submarines. Here's a few links to others that have had the time to post up their pictures. http://www.justphotos.ca/galleries/...rga2006L5S9.htm http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v...6/Targa%202006/ If you go to the Targa Newfoundland website, go to Forum, and you'll see where people are posting links to their pictures. -Bob
