The R Sport team of Bob and Adam entered their venerable Corolla in the early modern classification of this years Targa. After completing all the hurdles associated with just getting to a place over 5000K away for a 10 day event, the team joined up with Christian and Bill from Open Road Toyota and our old adversaries/friends from the UK, Tom and Pete in their Darrion (a car which drew much attention being the only version ever to race in Canada and definitely one of the fastest cars entered).

The event started well, timing is easy to start and then each day the organizers screw down the target times until they are impossible to meet and hence get a winner.

Because of a screw up in the classification some very fast M3's were originally left in our class for the first 3 days and so we were driving the socks of the old Corolla in order to hold up our end, unfortunately this led to hitting a pot hole very hard, (even though Adam did call it!) and deranging the steering while unknowingly leading our revised class. We managed to jury rig this with no loss of time by screwing out the track rod ends in order to complete the last stage before service.

Unfortunately on that stage a downhill hairpin overloaded the few threads left and the steering pulled apart sending the car into a ditch. A tow out meant a maximum on that stage and even with sterling work from our service crew getting us back out on time the penalty sent us way down the order and all hope of a win was gone.

The remainder went without any more major hitches although a 5th gear flat out 360 spin along a cliff top provided some entertainment !!!

The event is great fun, the locals are brilliant, very helpful and keen and out in their thousands to watch and support. Most competitors were helped in some way by complete strangers, there were stories of lent gearboxes, engine and ignition parts supplied from Islanders own vehicles, and both us and Tom were treated to welding shops that opened up for us late at night to fix broken parts at minimal or no cost.

All three members of our "team" were leading our respective classes at one time and we could easily have cleaned up, but, thats rallying.

Overall a great week with lots of time to meet and make new friends at the same time drive more stage miles than average weekend events would give in a year !!

Thanks as always to all our sponsors who helped get us there.

Bob and Adam

For more information on rallying logo onto:

RSport Rally RallyBC Special Stage Western Driver Magazine

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