A local taught me this so I would remember how to say the name of the island correctly, ‘understand Newfoundland’.

Beautiful setting in Flatrock for the rally school.  Tomorrow is tech inspection.

All of teams that we spoke to in the grand touring class are equipped.  But they are all running B boxes with an average speed display that their cars have .  None had ever seen a Timewise 798a Rally Computer. 

Wednesday was lining up to be more of the same.  Mechanical problems grounded our plane.  But we finally got into the air in chicago.  we got to portland ME and our car arrived 15 minutes later.  A mad dash across New Brunswick and Nova Scotia but we arrived at the ferry 6 hours late.  Options: rebook on the Friday night ferry or purchase a new passage on the 2345 weds ferry.  The travel gods smiled, they just let us on the ferry.  Another mad dash across the island and we have arrived in St Johns, Newfoundland.

Mechanical problems have delayed our flight to portland me.  I am not making this up

Hit the “reset” button last night. Bangor flight cancelled… as you’d expect. But this morning our plane is at the gate in Chicago, so we may be just 18 hours behind. Good thing they’re not timing us yet.

 

3 delays before we left Portland OR ate up our connection time. Heavy rains in Chicago put us in a holding pattern for an extra hour.  We missed our connection to Portland ME.  We are in Chicago waiting for a new flight to Bangor ME.  It too is delayed.  Current plan…fly to Bangor, get rental car, drive to Portland ME, get our car from Karen and Simon, drop off rental at airport, drive straight through to North Sydney NB to meet ferry at 330 pm wednesday.  We only have about a 2 hour buffer at this point.

In February 2008, we set out to do the AlCan 5000 Winter rally. We weren’t even sure if we’d do the rally until we crossed the start line in Kirkland, WA. We rallied all the way to and onto the Arctic Ocean near Tuktoyaktuk in the NW Territories. We finished up in Jasper, AB.  We made some lifelong friends on that rally.  I have a feeling that at Targa Newfoundland, we’ll do the same.

A little gift from our Canadian friend.

Tomorrow, we head out to Portland, ME. It’s the first leg of the transit to Targa Newfoundland. Our car has already made it to Buffalo, NY. Thanks Simon and Karen Levear for driving it out. Thanks Sue Colisch for house sitting while we’re away.

Start times are posted for the Sunday Prologue legs.

Results will be posted daily here targanewfoundland.com.

We are car 1009.

The car is packed and ready to go.  Friends will pick her up tomorrow drive her east to Portland ME.  We fly out next week to drive over the border and onto the ferry for Newfoundland.