Hume Media Rocks Targa

The following article is about my team’s adventures in the most competitive motorsport event in North America, the 2015 Targa Newfoundland road rally. First of all I will talk about the event, what exactly is a Targa you may ask? Older motorsport fans will no doubt recall the original three classic endurance races that were run on public roads. The Targo Florio was first, followed by the Mille Miglia and then Mexico’s Carrera Panamericana. The Targa Newfoundland is a tarmacbased rally race in the Canadian Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is an annual event covering 1,600 kilometers (970 miles) over a seven-day period every September on eastern and central parts of the island that is known locally as the ‘Rock’. The event allows the owners of historic, classic and modern sporting motor vehicles to drive them the way they were designed to be driven; hard and fast over a variety of road surfaces. The six days of the Targa competition is an ideal challenge for drivers where each vehicle competes against itself on a handicap basis as well as against other vehicles.

The Targa structure involves events within an event that run over the same stages, which remain closed to public traffic during the event. Fast Tour: is a non competitive go FAST event which allows the owners of exotic cars to drive them the way they were meant to be driven, without the stress of competition. Maximum allowable speed is 130 KPH in this category. Grand Touring; places the emphasis on accuracy and precision, it is a time-speeddistance rally (TSD Rally) where the focus is maintaining the average very quick speed set by the organizers. Maximum allowable speed is also 130 KPH in this category; Targa: The fastest category where the objective is to meet or slightly better the target stage times set by the organizers for age, displacement and modification level of the vehicle racing. Every competitor who completes all stages within the established trophy times wins a Targa plate. The maximum allowable speed for Targa competitors is 200 KPH. Trophies are awarded for overall placing in the Touring and Targa events and for placing within

the various categories within the Targa event, as well as trophies for national and marquee teams and for the best-placed novice team. To me racing is a selfish endeavor! To ease my guilt and thus feel great about what we do in Newfoundland each year, my company Hume Media Inc. races to raise funds for MS Research, a truly worthy cause. Over the past seven years we have raised over $160,000 doing this race. 100% of all funds raised are donated to MS Research. This year we entered a four car team and that would require two service crews for car support and three video and photo crews to record the good and the bad. That is a lot of people to be

herding around each day and night for a week and if I say so myself it is almost as easy as herding cats. It was a wild wet and wonderful week for the whole bunch of us. In our six days of actual racing we had four days run through driving rain, over river filled roads, making it the wettest race in the fourteen year history of the event. We brought out two vintage E46 M3s and a Mk I and Mk II MINI GP to this year’s edition of the Targa. Early era E46 M3s are ideal vehicles for a road rally like the Targa and finding one (or in our case two) to buy was a fairly easy exercise and affordable parts are still easily accessible. The 2002 Titanium Silver and 2004 Laguna Seca Blue M3s were both

basically stock with exception of the 2004 having aftermarket shocks, headers and exhaust system, boosting power from the stock 333 hp to about 370 hp with 325 ft/lbs torque to the rear wheels. To make sure both cars would handle and stop on the Rock’s ever changing roads we installed racing brake pads and a square set of 18 inch rims. The wheels were wrapped with awesome Michelin PS2 tires which are great in any weather (these things would probably stick to a wall if thrown at one). I piloted the TiAg M3 (#333) with the very able Ron Bartleet being my co-pilot. My son John Jr. would race the Blue M3 (#9), with Justin Crant alongside. This would be my first foray in the

Modern division at Targa, where you have to get from point A to Point B as fast as humanly possible. Keeping it on the road but never exceeding 200 kph would be a big change for me as I raced GTE for the six previous years. I was a tad timid during the first two days of rallying and earned some unnecessary penalty seconds for being late to the finish a few too many times. Starting Wednesday I did what I was supposed to do; ignore the speedo and go hell bent for leather. Using that approach we achieved much better results. Yes and I still kept it on the road and never once ran out of talent, (something my service crew was appreciative about). However John Jr and Justin (their third time in Modern together) were running perfectly as a team and at one with their car; either at the top or near the top of the leader board all week. John is a very smooth and excellent driver and Justin is the perfect co-pilot, they just gel together. Without a good co-pilot you would wind up driving off course or even worse. Through the week we ran fortyfour stages; through twisty narrow town alleys, between buildings just far enough apart to drive a car through and on high speed blasts on long winding roads following the contours of fjords. With so much of the event running in the pouring rain more than a dozen cars drove off the road or just plain crashed or broke down. Most were repaired and able to resume racing. Praise be, Team Hume had no such mishaps. But it was mechanical issues that threatened to knock the #9 out of the race on more than one occasion. The worst incident was the kill switch shorting out on a transit stage and killing all power to everything including the engine. It took us a while to find the cause but Garrett Nalepka and Alexander Walsh, our service crew did a quick fix removing parts from their service van and using them to construct a bespoke on the fly kill switch for the M3. And best of all, just in time for us to make it to the next stage! Another close call on the same vehicle came when a rear shock bolt came loose and the shock fell off. Fortunately it was right after the last stage of the week. That was close! It was a close battle all week in Modern Division, with several teams vying for top spot. In the end John Jr. and Justin managed a second place finish, only six seconds out of first. A certain car,

(no names provided to protect the guilty) held them up on the Brigus stage costing them their chance at the first place. But such are the fortunes of rally racing! Ron and myself in the #333 finished fifth in Modern. We very happy to finish the week fifth in what was our first outing in the new car and class. Our Silver Plate for finishing every stage within the minimum required “Trophy Times” was hard earned but we enjoyed ourselves. Next year we plan to do way better, or wreck the car trying - Not! Onto the two MINIs. We had entered a 2006 GP which is a very rare car. Only 2000 were ever built and they were never sold in Canada. I imported this one from California last year and it is car #0179. We installed a 18% reduction Pulley on the supercharger which allowing it to generate in excess of 230 HP. This little beauty was all stock otherwise. The other MINI was a 2013 GP, again only 2000 ever made this one being production #0430 and all stock. There was need to do any suspension or other alterations to the GPs as they cars are purpose built for track and competition events, plus they go like stink and stick like glue to the tight twisty roads of the ‘Rock’. Both MINIs have similar handling characteristics but the 2013 GP handles just a little bit better and its brakes are superior (same brakes as a BMW 1M). The 2006 GP makes up for its handling deficit with better acceleration. The old GP, #1334 was driven

by Norm “Lead Foot” Haas and co-driven by Toronto’s Christina Kroner. Both driver and co-driver were brand new to rally racing. I took them under my wing and taught them all I knew about TSD (time/speed/distance) rallying. TSD is technically very challenging to do. Lots of math and an ability to hold the car at a constant yet fast speed is required, along with nerves of steel and an absolute belief in the person in the opposite seat. The #1333 was both driven and copiloted by rally veterans Craig MacMullen (two-time winner in this event in GTE Class) and Nicole Troster who is in her second year of rallying (she had a 2nd place finisher in the Targa in 2014, her first time at the event in GTE class). They shared driving and navigating jobs all week. Norm and Christina had only met once when before the team signed them and they performed very well for first timers. Two people stuck in the cockpit of a MINI for a whole week up to ten hours a day, can be a tad stressful, especially if you are total strangers to begin with. Personality type begins to play a big role in how well the team performs, especially after two days. There were more than a few “tense” moments in their car a few times throughout the week. In one race through Trinity, red tape was blowing across the roadway just past a downhill hairpin right turn. Norm stopped and asked Christina what to do. She had no answer. So he decided to turn around and

retrace his route. Big mistake! The next car coming fast and furious was less than thirty seconds behind them. They had a very close call at that hairpin again as the next car almost ran straight into them. It was only then Norm realized (as Christina was whacking him about the helmet with her clipboard), he should not have turned around. Then he turned again, following the other car through the route, losing mucho penalty points along the way. Despite this major error the #1334 was somehow still in contention for a podium finish as of end of day Wednesday. However, in the first stage on Friday, last day of racing, Norm and Christina managed to clip a pothole at high speed, causing a blowout. This incident forced them to miss the first three stages Friday. But, unbelievably, they were still in contention for a podium finish! The luck of the Irish was with them to be sure. Meantime over in the #1333 Craig and Nicole were frontrunners all week. They had their eye on the MINI Challenge $3,000 reward for a first place finish awarded to a modern winning MINI. They ran a very clean race despite terrible weather and some twenty-six difficult speed changes to deal with all week. However, on Thursday they miscalculated badly in one very fast and variable speed stage earning a whopping fifty-five seconds in penalties. But by the end of day they were one second out of first. Friday brings the trickiest

stages of the week, the first two being long and fast. But to make things really difficult and even more challenging the race officials changed the speed to be run at the last minute! What a rotten thing to do! All GT teams had to recalculate and input revised times in their route books for the first two stages and go by gut feel alone, trying to hold the new average speed with no set times in their route books to reference. It really is quite an impossible thing to do. The team that had “guessed” best would win out. It turned out Craig and Nicole guessed second best, as they earned twenty more penalty seconds than Damm and Marris in their BMW 328Xi Wagon (car #1009). But it was in the Cupids and Brigus stages, during the last four stages of the day, where the GT class champions would finally be determined. Each town would be run twice and with only a few seconds separating first and second place teams it was anybody’s race. In the end Damm and Marris would beat out Craig and Nicole. In my seven years of doing this rally, more often than

not, I have witnessed the last race through Brigus determine the winner of this event. That is how close the competition can be at Targa Newfoundland. After forty-four stages, way too much rain, lots of sweat and tears, Team Hume managed to finish with three out of four cars on the podium and no wrecked cars. I have to say, this was a very successful year indeed, we were very pleased with our results but we could not have achieved these successes without our Service Crew supplied By Centennial College here in Toronto, Garrett Nalepka and Alexander Walsh. Both were up most nights past midnight, maintaining cars, rotating tires and replacing parts, to keep our four cars running in the most challenging of conditions in what really is the Ironman of Road Rallies. If you would like the thrill of a lifetime, an adventure rush like no other, the ultimate adrenaline rush, meet new friends and “gear heads” who share your passion for cars and driving fast, very fast, on closed public roads, then contact: registrar@ targanewfoundland.com or call 1-877-332-2413 - Tell them John Hume sent you.