Cars, Security and a Peek into my Life
This paper must be shown at the start of each stage.
Received at registration, and if you lose it, they will not give you another one.
The 2 key pieces of information:
1 – proof you passed breathalyzer that morning
2 – the weight of your car before the race. It is weighed again at the end, and if it doesn’t match*, disqualification
* because a mismatched weight implies you added enhancements, swapped the engine, some sort of cheating may be happening.
First the car goes through tech: where mirrors are passed underneath, and its weight is noted.
As Craig here explained, the car is weighed at both the start and finish of the race, and if the two don’t match, an investigation commences to find out why (adding enhancements, swapping the engine, are you cheating…)
Then registration.
My first official racing licence come ON.
Then we stickered up our cars. Looking good eh.
All the cars coming together for the nightly car show.
Then Michel and I asked Brian to take us out for more training, on how to do navigational math.
So much math guys.
I just have to drive, I just am so thankful.
The goal was to maintain an average speed of 50 km/h.
Ya okay, but now to do that under pressure.
Where this post came from.
And an arty Targa shot.
Let’s start with my driving partner Michel Crepault.
A 30-year veteran of the auto journalism world, Michel founded and publishes L’Annuel de L’Automobile (Annual Auto Guide), a 14-year old, 700+ page book that details every vehicle available for sale the upcoming model year. Click that link to buy it.
We’re fast becoming a very solid team, and I’m lucky because right now, he’s doing our mapping homework alone, so I can post this. Merci Michel xo
Our team’s entry into the fastest category is Nissan’s Juke, Nismo edition.
Driving the Juke is Jim Kenzie.
You know Jim, I’ve introduced you before because he’s awesome. And good at Targa too, having competed in all 13 of them, and winning 3 times, phft.
Part of that winning us because of his navigator, Brian Bourbonniere.
That’s his racing suit that he wears in the passenger seat, and is so good at navigating he once completed a rally without making a single mark on the paper, handing it back to the rally master as it was given to him. That is ridicuoulsy difficult.
No matter how many questions I pester him with, only patience in return. And I have a _lot_ of questions.
And this is Cathy Cole, the glue of the team. She herds us around and takes care of logistics, and when you say to her, “Cathy, can you please…” she’s already thought of it, and pulls it out of her purse.
Helping her adhere my sticker to her binder is Mario, our tech, who I’ll introduce you to in another post, along with Danny, Michael, Jenn and Didier.
Because there’s a lot of laughing, and everyone gets along really well, which considering there’s so many of us, how rare is that. Exactly. #TeamNissanTarga
Hi hi –
Have 3 half-done posts here (meet some of the Nissan Team / Tech and a Car Show / Learned the TerraTrip and that’s Important)… but it’s 11pm and my eyes are burning. I’ll finish and publish them tomorrow.
Itinerary is: breakfast is at 7am, then all drivers must report to the HQ at 8, we convoy downtown to a mandatory driver’s meeting, and then it’s Prologue – a practice race day. We’ll be racing 3 stages, in full gear and just like the real race, only difference is it doesn’t count towards our score.
Michel and I still have navigation work to do before the race, so I’ll do my best to blog but that must come first.
Until then, here’s me driving inside a building, I was SO EXCITED. When do you ever get to drive a car inside anything? (only once before for me)
TTYT
Boom boom.
Tell you all about it tomorrow, but right now it’s 11pm, I just got back to my room, and I’m so tired I look high, TTYT
(find all Targa posts under this tag – #NissanMicraTarga)
