It's really happening

I was standing there next to the nearly completed race car in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn in St. John's sort of basking in the thought of actually being in Targa Newfoundland. As I swooned away I thought to pinch myself to end my momentary reverie. However, ‘twasn't necessary, in my lapse I dropped the wrench I was holding on my foot and that ended any halcyon moments for the time being.

Besides, there was work to be done! Thankfully little, and easily accomplished, for the excitement has begun to overtake my senses. We’re here, and we’re ready. We spent our first day in St. Johns sleeping, which felt exceedingly good, and then doing some final prep on the car, such as wiring up the Terratrip communicators to that we can actually hear one another while in the car. Apparently these pace notes (or tulips) are pretty important, eh.

I want to interject for a moment with a clarification. I can hear all of you out there reading this and you’re saying “New-FOUND-land.” Well, stop it, all you Americans, just quit. I’ve tried actually listening to people, and while it’s a strange concept, one of the things I picked up is that the place is pronounced “New-fund-LAND”, with a little inflection on the last syllable. It’s sort of charming. Not in the nasal way people say “Co-lo-RAD-oh” instead of the clearly correct, “Co-lo-Rah-do”, but in a nice Newfie sort of way.

Back to the story.

So, we finished that stuff up by Friday afternoon and ran some errands to get a few things including octane booster. It seems that “hi-test” gasoline around here is 91 octane, so we’ll be using additives for the duration. This involved a search of St. John’s, during which we found another endangered species. A Wal-Mart of which you can see the back wall from the front. I know, how 1993. It’s just a regular Wal-Mart, not a SuperCenter, or a GroceryMogul, or any building capable of hosting the Super Bowl, should all of the beach chairs in the sporting good section be unfolded. It was sort of refreshing, although the dire situation of the US Dollar against the Canadian Dollar meant that we couldn’t have any real Wal-Sprees or anything like that. So, we just got what we needed and left. Boring, I know, but still nice.

We also took the car out for an exploratory run to see if our ride heights were going to work with the road conditions that are famously “bumpy”. We drove on the TCH and the local roads and the car was working fine, so we decided that deserved lunch. Racing is all about justification. You have to justify the need for new parts, better tires, shinier paint, whatever. By the same token, you have to justify the time lunch takes by attributing great importance to the task you’ve just achieved, imparting such momentousness to it that NOT going to lunch to celebrate would be something of a kick in the shins to all involved.

So, we hit up the excellently quaint and friendly downtown harbor area and found a sandwich shop that was sort of a mix of a college hangout/hippie coffeehouse/ and gourmet sandwich place, all stirred together. I had a bagel sandwich with sun-dried cream cheese, smoked salmon, breaded chicken, and apple slices. It was pretty righteous, if you know what I mean. It was also excellent fuel for continuing onward.

Now that the car was ready, and we had run our errands, it was pretty much time to review some notes and hang out. Which we did with aplomb. We found Roy Hopkins and Adrienne Hughes outside and we ran into our friend Ian from the ferry in the hotel bar/restaurant. We sat and told stories and generally got great Targa-related advice until it was time to go to the airport.

I may not have mentioned this before. We had to go to the airport to pick up our crew. Brian Beckett and Greg Snyder agreed to be our crew for this event, but we clearly did something wrong. Everyone else had a crew that drove the truck to the event and then the driver and co-driver flew in when it was time to be here. I’m feeling like we’ve been a bit had. But, anyway, we went to the huge St. John’s regional airport and collected them and were on our way. This was at midnight last night by the way.

So, today was registration. It’s official. You can’t stop me now, I…have a name badge. Get out of my way. We got up early and got through registration and tech rather breezily. No problems other than a cold breakfast sandwich. In the grand scheme of things, that rates right below a minor earthquake and above a good toe-stubbing, so it’s pretty okay.

Once that was done we did the odometer check leg provided for us and that went off without a hitch. Our odo was off by .02 km after 43.05 km of total driving. Not bad at all. I can spit that far.

We spent the balance of the afternoon rearranging the trunk and talking to people in the arena. It’s a cool setup, they park all the cars in the local arena and then the public comes to check them out. We got to show a lot of kids the cars and take their pictures in the driver’s seat and so forth. Pretty fun.

That’s all for now. We’re off to another meet and greet and then we do our first real practice stage tomorrow. And yes, I know, “real practice” is an oxymoron, but it’s my blog, so deal with it.

Cheers, we’re almost there!