Kenzie vs. Targa: The grudge match

I promise to not get myself almost killed this year.

Easier said than done, but I'm not one to let a little failure get in my way – which is why I will be competing again at Targa Newfoundland, which starts today.

You may recall that last year I tried to take the downhill left-handed bend heading out of Leading Tickles too fast (160 km/h) and too wide and did an couple of end-over-end rollovers down an embankment and into the trees.

Only recently did I learn that we did two end-overs. I had thought it was only one.

Maybe that's why the other cars never saw us. We were too deep into the boonies.

But thanks to the stringent safety requirements of the event – full roll cages; five-point safety harnesses; proper modern race-approved helmets; my navigator Brian Bourbonniere and myself also were among the first Targa competitors to wear HANS devices (they should be made mandatory, too) – we both emerged unscathed, although I was knocked unconscious and my memory of the rollover and the preceding five kilometres or so of the stage remains sketchy to non-existent.

Targa Newfoundland, in its eighth year, is patterned after the original in Tasmania, which is now 18 years old.

Belleville-based PR consultant Doug Mepham and I did Targa Tasmania back in 2001 in a 1971 Volvo 142S, and the aftermath thereof, wondering aloud (and here in Wheels) about the improbability of doing something like that in North America, led directly to the inaugural Targa Newfoundland 18 months later.

It is one of a handful of such events worldwide; others run in New Zealand and Western Australia. There are ongoing attempts to replicate Newfoundland's success in British Columbia. I will provide details as they emerge. A similarly named event in California is not a true Targa.

A Targa event is divided into two separate competitions. The Touring class is essentially a traditional time-and-distance rally. Competitors are given average speeds they must maintain for each stage and are penalized for being early or late.

Speeds are within legal limits. Nonetheless, you have to pedal pretty hard to make your times.

Touring cars do not have quite the same stringent safety requirements; a lot of people don't want to rip up the interior of their favourite car to install a roll cage, for example.

In the Targa competition, cars are classified roughly by age (there are Classic, Modern and Open categories), performance potential, state of modification and engine size.

Base times are established by the rallymaster for every stage, for each class and category of car. Meet or beat this time, and you score zero penalty points.

(This is unlike typical performance rallies where the fastest car zeros, and everybody else accumulates penalties.)

Lowest penalty points over the week-long 2,200-kilometre event wins.

The handicapping system means that an older, supposedly slower car does not have to go as fast to zero the stage.

There are big trophies for each category, smaller ones for each class and a huge one for lowest overall score.

There has only officially ever been an overall winner, which was last year, although category winners have always used total points for bragging rights.

Assuming the handicaps between classes are accurate, this means that a 1972 BMW 2002 (last year's overall winner in the hands of longtime Targa veterans Roy Hopkins and Adrian Hughes from Spencerport, N.Y.) can compete even-up with a 2010 Nissan GT-R – which they will this year, as Nissan USA is bringing one of these supercars up from California with off-road rally specialist Steve Millen at the wheel, navigated by Mike Monticello.

If you achieve the trophy time for every stage – roughly two-thirds of the speed needed to make the base time – you win a Targa plate,which is the number 1 goal of each competitor. It is a reward for being consistently quick, but also reliable and accurate.

Targa this year is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Mini with a MiniFest, which will include several special events honouring the British automotive icon.

We have been a big part of that Mini-Targa history, having run a Cooper S in all but the very first Targa Newfoundland. We've done pretty well too, winning the Open Division twice in a row (2005, 2006) and finishing third in 2007, against cars with as much as three times more power and in most cases twice as many driving wheels.

Last year? Well, never mind.

We have a brand-new Mini Challenge car this year, built on the normal Mini assembly line but modified for one-marque racing series in Europe. It has been prepped again by the Sprongl Brothers in Georgetown, Ont., and made ready for rallying.

It is the same colour as last year – white over red – and the new Mini body doesn't look much different from the old. We're thinking of putting a decal on it, reading: 'It buffed up pretty good, eh?''Total entries are down this year, as you would expect in an economic downturn. It is an expensive event to run, although relatively cheap when compared to other forms of motorsport. There are 57 entries listed on the website (targenewfoundland.com), 12 in Touring and 45 in Targa. A few stalwarts will be missing this year. Tom Silver, a Minneapolis-based multi-time Targa entrant in his Mustang (although last year he drove a Ford Falcon) passed away this winter from cancer. He will be especially missed. And perennial contender Bill Arnold in his killer BMW Bavaria has decided to sit this year out, focusing on the Carrera Panamericana, a not-totally-dissimilar event in Mexico.

But there will be loads of cool cars, tons of action, all accompanied as always by the spectacular scenery and incredible hospitality that Newfoundland offers.

If you can't be there, check out my blog (thestar.blogs.com/kenzie). I'm going to try to file a dispatch every evening.

But in light of what happened last year, I'm also going to try to get more sleep.

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