Targa thoughts

Well, I just had an interesting conversation with my Dad. See, he just told me he's decided to retire next year (at 59, the bum.) We've talked a lot about doing a Targa Newfoundland effort, but neither of us has had the time to put any serious plans together. But ya, we want to take a shot at it. Probably for 2010 at this point, if we get serious.

This seems to have a few logistical problems since we live about 4000 miles away from each other, but I think if we plan ahead enough we'll be able to pull together and make a good team.

The car of choice? Well, he & I co-own a 944S already but we both think it's a bit too nice to gut & cage. Now, although neither of us has owned one before, we're both big fans of the E34 BMW 540i. A well-sorted, solid car with good handling and lots of power, plus V8 rumble. How can you go wrong? Here in Germany they're common and parts are decently cheap. BMWs in general seem to do well every year but I can't think of anyone who's run a 540 specifically.

I'd probably end up sourcing the car here and sending it over in a container with as many hop-up goodies and racing parts as I can find. He'd do the actual build in Ontario since he has a lot more time, shop space, tools, and mechanical know-how than I do. Neither of us are rich but this wouldn't exactly be done on a shoestring either.

Anyway I'm just throwing this out. I'd love to hear some advice from experienced competitors. (Incidentally, do you have to enter as a driver & navigator specifically, or can you switch around during the event?) We won't be setting out to win on our first try, but that doesn't mean we don't want to be competitive.

J

Oooh, I could write forever on this one :) Ask David, it's true.

Do it. That's the short form.

Playing "build the ideal Targa car" is a lot of fun. Step one, as in any racing series, is to get the regulations and read them. Note that they may change in 2010, the current regulations are 2006-09.

Now check out page 2 of this PDF. That shows the handicapping. Since that particular stage is pretty short, the difference is only 21 seconds from fastest (Open) to slowest (2 SS Small). But the times are determined from a multiplier. The Open Class cars have to run 25% faster than the slowest ones, and I know I've seen the factors published somewhere. This is important if you want to win, as your placement is determined by the number of penalties you pick up. The newer your car, the faster you have to go to be competitive. Your E34 will be in either 8 SS Large or 8 MS Large depending on modification level.

A friend and I are currently arguing the merits of an old Escort with a BDA, a 1961 Lotus Super Seven with a fully built crossflow and a Lotus Elan Sprint as Targa cars. Meanwhile, I think dropping an LS1 into my Targa Miata would make for a fantastic car but would pop me into the big leagues against factory rally teams and the Group B Quattro.

The car has to be as reliable as an anvil. You're only going to get 5-6 hours of sleep even if everything works perfectly, and if you're doubling as crew and driver this is especially important. Big cars like 540s are hard on brakes for example. It sucks to be swapping out rotors and pads and bleeding the system when you could be getting some rest. The suspension will be critical, so make sure you have ground clearance, very solid mounts and preferably skid plates. You would not believe how rough some of the stages are.

The car needs to be nimble for some very tight town stages. It needs to be stable at high speeds, although the overall max is 125 mph. Doesn't sound like much, until you realize that you're doing this on often-battered pavement on a winding road you've never seen before. I'm uploading all of my video, you can see the first few days at http://www.targamiata.com/video.php right now. That might help give an idea of the condition of the stages - especially when you consider my camera simply gave up on the really rough stuff. On at least one occasion, the organizers didn't bother to put a speed bump in the route book because it wasn't an "out of character" bump. You'll also need a wide powerband with lots of torque, but the BMW won't be bothered here at all.

You can swap back and forth between driver and navigator. Hugo and Maxime Vadeboncoeur did that this year, and they were the fastest novice team out there. It worked really well for them because one's a national-level autocrosser (town stages) and the other is a road racer. Still, it's unusual enough to be noteworthy. Most teams will not swap, and I'm glad we didn't.

The goal for your first year should be the Targa Plate. To get this, you need to finish every stage within 135% of your base time. In other words, you have to be consistent. You can't get stuck in a ditch or hobble through a stage with tacoed brake rotors. It's harder than it sounds. This year, 25 out of 46 starters came home with a plate.

Another option would be to run Touring. The speeds aren't as high on the open stages, but the car can be stock. In town, you're going almost as fast as the Targa teams are. In fact, I think a 540i ran Touring this year.

I've often wondered about the Touring class. The wife is willing to do that one with me, not-so-wild about being strapped into a car with me going full bore for a week several thousand miles from home (I don't see the problem myself). My 'fear' is that the Touring class would be too slow to amuse me, yet I get the idea it may actually be like a 'brisk' TSD and give the driver plenty of opportunity to attempt proper apexes.

I think the trick to enjoying Touring is to bring a slow car. The times are the same regardless, so you'll have to pedal a lot harder. Which is what we all want, right? From what I could tell, the Touring cars had to run almost as fast as we did in the slow stages. It was only in the fast ones that there was a dramatic difference. How dramatic? Well, the numbers are getting fuzzy in my brain, but I think their average speed on the long Leading Tickles stage was supposed to be 85 kmh. Ours was over 120, and we didn't have a penalty for coming in early.

The TSD I ran in prep for the Targa had all the speeds pegged at 2 mph under the speed limit. It almost killed me. During the Targa, on the last day, there was a stage that had to be shortened. This wasn't a problem for the Targa guys (start at instruction 6 and go balls-out like usual) but it was a problem for the Touring. So the organizers just told them to drive 10 kmh over the limit - and from what I could tell from talking to my friends driving the Alfa, that was slower than usual. They managed to spin the car at some point during the race, so it wasn't just a leisurely tour through the countryside.

I'll bet your Mini would be great on Touring, as is. There are several Mini teams that run, and it's a real group effort to keep them all in top (or at least functional) form. They won the "spirit of Targa" award this year for going to extreme lengths to get one car to the finish line. And it got there.

37hp would certainly offer the challenge I'd be looking for. The problem is getting the wretched thing there and back. If we ran it in our Subaru, it would just be a drive up, compete, and drive back. Still, point to ponder.

ddavidv wrote: 37hp would certainly offer the challenge I'd be looking for. The problem is getting the wretched thing there and back. If we ran it in our Subaru, it would just be a drive up, compete, and drive back. Still, point to ponder.

Think of the "getting there" as the preparation for the actual event. You could post your route, and then GRM'ers could put you up for the night, or help you with the inevitable repairs. By the time you got to NFLD, everything that would likely break probably already has, so you'd be in good shape mechanically. Probably not so good emotionally or physically, however.

The Mini would be the much more emotional choice - highs and lows. You'd have so much more fun, and you'd have to overcome more than with the Subaru.

And the kids would love it. For the Newfoundland kids (and just like around here, the age range for "kid" often stretches as far as "still breathing"), the Targa is Christmas and Easter and summer holidays all rolled in to one. They add a lot to the event. The one thing we didn't bring was "hero cards" - basically cards with a picture of the car and sponsor stuff - and we were a rolling disappointment. But still, they love to look at the cars, sit in the cars (a real high point), cheer on the cars and exhort the cars to do massive burnouts. Best quote of the race: "Do a burnout! We're playing hookey for this, and we'll all be in detention tomorrow!" And that was in a gas station in the middle of nowhere, not near a stage.

The guys in the Alfa drove up from Toronto for the race. They were going to do it unsupported, but ended up throwing their spares and tools in our truck.

What would a realistic budget for the event be? Not including the vehicle but including spares tires etc. I have always wanted to do a Targa.

It may be different for the southern hemisphere races, of course - but I outlined some of the costs here; http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/dissecting-a-stage-of-the-targa-newfoundland/4071/page1/ .

For tires, in Newfoundland you're only allowed to use 6. That makes budgeting easy. Honestly, I could have done the event on four, as they barely look scrubbed in. Meanwhile, the same RA1s on Bill Arnold's big BMW Bavaria were getting chewed up.

ZOOMiata wrote: Think of the "getting there" as the preparation for the actual event. You could post your route, and then GRM'ers could put you up for the night, or help you with the inevitable repairs. By the time you got to NFLD, everything that would likely break probably already has, so you'd be in good shape mechanically. Probably not so good emotionally or physically, however.

As roomy as a Mini is, I don't see it being the right choice for essentially 3 weeks worth of travel with luggage, tools, an endless array of BL quality spares...not to mention it's huge 6.5 gallon fuel tank. I think I'd need to tow it there and have at least one support person chasing us around. We would also be miserable failures at the burnout request. I'd need a skidplate and some wheels far stronger than my paper mache GB Minilite replicas. It would certainly be unique performing in front of an actual audience for a change. The spirit of the islanders is apparent in the TV coverage.

Good discussion guys! Keith, I forwarded your comments on to my Dad. Not sure if this is going to go anywhere at this point as the logistics are a bit tricky, but we both really want to give it a try. Maybe an idea would be starting in Touring the first year just to get a feel for the event, and having a full-on go at Targa the next year.

Does the Touring class also run on closed roads? Or is it open roads & subject to traffic rules like a TSD?

J

The Touring class runs on the same closed stages the Targa cars do. Touring runs first, then there's a 5-10 minute wait to build up a buffer, then the slowest Targa cars set off. No traffic rules, no speed limits, no stop signs or traffic lights The only real difference is that the Touring guys are trying to stick to a specific average speed (I don't know if it changes through the stage or not), while the Targa guys are trying to maintain a minimum average speed. There are Interim Time Controls for the Touring guys, nothing for the Targa cars. Really, both groups are running the same race, just under different rules.

There are traffic rules on the transit stages, of course. Those are ordinary, open public roads. The organizers stated that speeding tickets would be penalized fairly aggressively - whether said ticket was achieved by a competitor or a member of their support crew. The result was that you could always spot a car that was taking part in the race by the line of cars stuck behind it :) However, I did see a couple of competitors and supprt vehicles having roadside chats with the police, and not a single penalty was applied according to the final results.

David, there are usually other teams willing to haul parts around. It's common to see an offer of trailer space on the Targa forum in the months coming up to the event. We carried spares for another team, and there was one service crew supporting about 5 cars as far as I could tell. I'll bet Dick Patterson (the driver of Betsy, the red wide Mini) would be willing to help out. A word of warning - all classic Minis have to have names.

Fuel's not really a problem. We were concerned about potential unavailability of 91 octane so we kept our tank pretty much topped up all the time. We never needed more than about 5 gallons in the car, although we did have a jerry can in the truck with high test just in case. Some teams - especially the Audi - ran just enough fuel to get through the stage and topped up roadside when they finished.

My car has a name (of course). We call it Cecil, as in Cecil the Turtle from Bugs Bunny cartoons. Slow like a turtle, but filled with treachery to win.