Targa: Leg 4 Wrap Up

It was an early start for teams this morning, as the two-hour transit to Burin Peninsula meant that cars were on the road at sunrise.  The first stages would take the teams to Harbour Mille, a stunning little fishing village perched on the rocks. As whitecaps whipped at the sea walls, cars roared down the coast in the bright morning sun. The real heart of Targa Newfoundland has begun, as the race order starts to show itself, and teams start feeling the pressure to perform.

As the week winds down, target times start getting a little harder to match, and every second of penalty time becomes more critical. Unlike a cumulative-time rally, Targa competitors are given penalty time if they are slower than the given target.  This means that once they have lost time and accrued penalties, they can never lower their score. Competitors must push on and hit their remaining target times, and hope that competitors ahead of them will fall back down the results. Think of it like golf, except you can't get anything lower than par.  The veteran teams know how this game is played, and have been quietly hitting their marks right from the first stage, waiting for the real battle to begin on the last two days.  Going into Friday's Leg 5, teams will be doing all they can to preserve their position.

Today's stages saw a few mishaps, including the unfortunate introduction between a house and a BMW M3.  This was the BMW team's first foray into rallying, and were doing extremely well in the standings. A little bit of loose gravel changed all that though, and they are working on the car this evening trying to straighten things out in time to roll over the finish line tomorrow.  The Mitsubishi EVO of Peter Guagenti was also forced to retire this evening with a failing clutch. There aren't many EVO clutches kicking around these parts, so they weren't hopeful of continuing.

At the front of the pack though, Roy Hopkins and Adrienne Hughes in the "sponge painted" BMW 2002 are still out in front, with a pack of 5 cars nipping at their heels, including MacKenzie/Alexander ('69 Camaro), Bolger/Milnes ('63 Mini Cooper), Buchanan/Adams ('67 Acadian Canso), and Sanderson/Carmichael ('81 Porsche 911).  As Jim Kenzie mentioned though, "Roy doesn't make mistakes," and will likely only drop off the top step if he encounters trouble.  Unfortunately, last year's winners, Glen Clarke and Evan Gamblin had to retire today with ongoing engine problems. Warm up your modems, here is a monster gallery to tide you over until tomorrow night's Targa finish results!