Targa Newfoundland, they say it’s all about the drive and my god it is!
I’m Dave Didcock and I co-drive for Ben Gill in an FIA Historic MK2 Group 4 Escort called “The Pearl”, which some of you may have seen at Carfax last year. In 2012 Ben and I ventured across the pond to compete in Targa Newfoundland, our result was 2nd in class and 4th overall, we were hooked and we just had to do it again !
The event consists of 6 days rallying covering 2200 kilometres, stages can be up to 30 kilometres through some of the most beautiful scenery on earth, likewise… some of the worst roads. Competitors come from all over the US and Canada to compete, Brits are pretty rare! The event has 4 classes; Modern, Open, Classic and Grand Touring the later being for drivers who want to complete the course based on target times. Newfoundland is very rural and has a sparse population and Targa is a very big deal for all Newfoundlanders, they turn out en mass to support all of the stages. Every evening a Car Show is held in the local community centre, all of which strangely seem to double as Ice Rinks; Newfoundlanders love ice hockey even more than Targa! Competitors are encouraged to attend the event and meet and greet local fans. Targa is also used to raise awareness and funds for a local Autism charity, and the evening events include fund raising activities. As the co-driver in a foreign country its quite scary preparing, as pace notes aren’t available and the Road Book consists of just Tulip Diagrams. Hence I spent many hours watching previous year’s stages on You Tube trying to fill in the gaps!
Our journey starts at Immingham near hull where the car and spares are loaded into a container for their 3 week voyage to Newfoundland. We arrived on Thursday 12 September and after clearing customs and collecting our car from the container port we made our way to st johns, the capital of Newfoundland and the start of this truly amazing event.
After Saturday’s technical checks; the main event started on Sunday, with 3 prologue stages. This enables crews to give their cars a shakedown and provides an insight into what they will be up against over the forthcoming week. The days are long with 0630hrs starts with both driver and co-driver being breathalysed, transit and stages take us up to 1800hrs when we clean and prep the cars, attend the evening shows, then just enough time for a hasty dinner, note checking for the next day and then bed for tomorrows early start. Monday took us from St Johns north towards Gander covering 373 kilometres, 95 of which were completed over 8 stages. Tuesday took us further north to Glovers Harbour and back again, where we were due to compete in 9 stages.
Leg three took us south east to Clarenville via some new stages to the event which created major difficulties for some crews; several cars had to retire and many more were damaged. On top of this a Moose on the road delayed the start of one stage – you don’t get hazards like this on Carfax do you? Leg four took us south west where we headed to the Marystown area completing another 8 very fast but technical stages which were very testing. One particular stage which covered 12 kilometres only had 4 Tulips! Some of the hairpins came as a bit of a surprise! As we entered into leg five leading the classic division by just over 10 minutes all we had to do was bring the car home, but Friday was going to see us completing the longest transit of the week, 451 kilometres driving of which only 56 were completed over the 7 stages. One of these stage is the famous Brigus stage, which took us through a tiny village between picket fences no more than a car width apart, a jump bridge half way into the stage and a fast but tight right with beautiful views over a steep drop to the ocean’s edge. It was here that a fellow competitor turned their Fiat 500 Arbarth into a crumpled crisp packet last year, so the pressure was on!
After the last stage of the day the final 110k transit took us back into the St Johns where we head down to The Keg in the harbour crossing the finish line to be greeted and receive our competitor’s medal. Even though everybody was physically drained we still found the energy to party on the Saturday night after the awards ceremony in what’s got to be the friendliest capital in the world before returning home on the Sunday evening.
Ben and I took victory in the Classic Division by 16 minutes and have bragging rights to be Targa Newfoundland 2013 overall winners for having the dropped the least amount of time over the week
None of what you have read would have been possible without our support crew Richard Guglielmi and Howard Burdett who ensured the car was prepped and were at the start and finish of every stage.
This was a truly amazing experience and I would recommend it to anybody, below is a link to my website where you will be able to see some in-car footage from the event. It’s also worth checking out the Targa Newfoundland website, it really is all about The Drive!
http://targanfld.com/
