They said it was the Ultimate North American Tarmac Rally. They were right. It’s called the Targa Newfoundland Rally. Over 1600 miles on the asphalt roads across the province of Newfoundland on Canada’s east coast in September. 36 competition stages connected by 40 transit stages throughout 5 days, excluding the demonstration and prologue days. I was intrigued about the whole enduro thing, and my race team partner said “why don’t we go for it and enter this thing? I agreed and we were off to a 9 day motorsport adventure.

Since we really didn’t have a proper car for this event, we decided to modified one of our ITA CRX’s (we have 3 of them). The car had to have everything street legal, full cage, 2 seats, spare, suspension travel, rally computer, etc. etc. Problem was, we had zero pro rally experience. We didn’t even have any TSD rallies under our belt. But we did have 12 years of IT competition racing Hondas and we were quite comfortable running the CRX at high speeds. Initially upon arrival, we decided we were a huge underdog. Big dollar, huge budget rally cars were everywhere. Entrants had everything from vintage Jag’s to Pro rally Subaru and everything in between. 62 race cars had signed up for this thing. Two main classes; Touring Class, in which any street legal car can enter. Max to posted speed limit and no competition license required. Targa Class, which is full high speed requiring a full roll cage & competition license.

We decided that we would switch between driver and navigator at lunch time. I drove the morning sessions while Steve drove in the afternoon. On day 1, Steve thought we were “going to die” as he put it, not being at all comfortable in the passenger seat. When we switched, I thought “we were going to die” too. We didn’t get comfortable with each others driving until about day 3. By day 4, a few cars had crashed out of the race and or had mechanical trouble. We were still tied for 1st place overall (with 10 others) and the little CRX was gaining some respect. I guess we got the “hang” of this rally thing. We were passing Porsches at 130 mph through the back roads of Newfoundland. This was big-time fun. By day 5 we were still in the top ten. Eventually winning our class and finishing 8th overall. Not bad for a couple of road racers that didn’t have a clue about rallying. This was an extreme motorsport adventure in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

What my point is here. If any of you IT folks would like to consider competing in a fantastic enduro event like no other ever experienced, consider the 2004 Targa Newfoundland Tarmac Rally. IT cars are well suited for this type of racing. This year’s rally had competitors from around the world. Several from the eastern States and the overall winners were from California. The 2003 event will be telecast on Speed sometime in January and Jan. 31 on Global. For more information check out their website at www.targanewfoundland.com

Photos of our car (703) and our rental car (704) can be seen at http://www.targanewfoundlandgander.com/Pho...hotoGallery.htm

Bruce McNutt