September 2014 - Page 3 of 9

Targa Rally Day 8 – Dream Driving Day No Dramatics

Sep 18 2014

A rare clear blue sky for 9 unreal stages, one of which I can’t wait to show you the video… a 300 year old town, all roped off, real narrow streets and turns every tenth of a kilometre.

I accumulated so many points because I floored it the whole time instead of trying to maintain the average speed. I crossed the finish line laughing so hard my head was in the steering wheel.

We are holding down a fun last place and that’s okay, genuinely. In school they said, “none of you will win, just try to finish”, and it’s me so I was all PHFT. But they were right and that’s what we’ll do tomorrow, so I have to go finish the math for that and will leave you with a bunch of pics from today until I can get home and properly fill you in.

Targa is really hard and really worth worth it.

TTYT

Targa Rally Day 8 – What a Rally Really Looks Like

Sep 17 2014

The first photo – doing math. There’s so. much. math.

We bounced back today, zero-d many stages, still in 5th place though, Targa is tough. And a very mental game.

Back to the hotel by 6pm, combed my hair then we had a special event at a local Nissan dealer: Come meet the Nissan team and enjoy a BBQ.

Then what you see below. That’s Michel and I doing the timing calculations for tomorrow’s 10 races, and that’s why I’m saying good night and will update you properly soon.

Oh and one of the today’s races was right through a town that looked like a movie set (got video), and tried a handbrake on a hairpin and almost pulled it off. Almost. Still tried!

TTYT

Targa Rally Day 7 – Guys I’m Sorry I Can’t Even

Sep 16 2014

The 90 minutes to finish this post, my head is falling down. I have so much to tell you, and will tomorrow.

Short update is we’re now in second last place. I know. That didn’t take long eh.

Forget everything I’ve said – this game is all math, and I’m tanking it hard. We laughed a lot, but there’s no podium for that. You know how competitive I am, so you know the state of my mind.

kk night TTYT

Targa Rally Day 6 – Results Day 1/5

Sep 15 2014

First!

Racing school paid off, as did our practice during off-hours, and Michel’s fast-mastery of navigational math.

4 more days to do this though, not getting excited just yet.

Monitor the results here.

Targa Rally Day 6 – Race Day 1/5 Complete

Sep 15 2014

We left at 8am for our new home in Clarenville, 2 hours north of St. John’s.

Much of our day was spent in transit.

Along with 5 races.

Entire communities rope off their front yards, and we go flying through at 80+ km/h. I’ll get an out-the-windsheild video this week, so you can see what it looks like.

While we were nervous for the race 1, it dissipated and by race 5 we were in a solid rhythm.

Michel has this calm, evenly metered voice that is so nice in my ear, compared to what’s outside my windshield: crazy roads, and scenery coming at me mega fast.

His voice never breaks, and he’s starting to pepper the commentary with observations like that drone line, which was so out of place it made me jacknife, and I almost bit the steering wheel.

In between races though, we are studious.

Our modified Micra dash.

The goal of the game is to cross the finish line at the exact right time, as monitored by the egg timer taped to our dash.

In race 2, we crossed the finish line at the exact moment the timer beeped, and we lost our minds with hyperness. Confirmed: a Micra steering wheel can handle a happy beating.