Thanks to everyone for your support, encouragement and donations. We raised over $7000 for the Hearing Loss Association of America and Finger Lakes Region Lions Hearing Foundation. Tom and I arrived home Monday evening after three long days of travel. Overall we had a great experience. The driving, people and scenery were outstanding. Tom is already planning on his engine rebuild and we hope to do some smaller rallies in the Ottawa region next year. Hope everyone has a great Fall and thanks again !!

Well Tom and I had a great day of racing!! The weather was dreadful, driving rain, windy and low overcast but our porsche ran like a top and we were scoring like the leading racers. We had zero penalty points on the last five stages (which only had a three second window). Everything came together today, we made some minor adjustments in our computer calculations which allowed us to be much more accurate and along with driving fast we did much better than expected. What a great way to finish. Unfortunately the heavy rain kept many of the spectators away but there were some hearty Newfoundland souls that were cheering us on. We had a hearty breakfast of fried bologna, eggs, baked beans, home fries and toast at a small fishing village called boat harbour. Lunch was served at the Brigus community center by the locals and what a spread they put out for us. Were were somewhat behind schedule so we had to eat quickly to meet our start times. We had one long stage cancelled today because (we think) there were not enough...

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Well we were tied for first after the first day (dumb luck) now we are showing our true colors and  are close to the bottom of the group. We have found that the good rally racers (and there are many here) have been doing it for some time and work together well as a team. Not that Tom and I don't try to work together and we are very good friends, however we really had no clue all the teamwork, preparation and skill that goes into it. We are having a ball driving fast over many of the courses and we are getting better as the week goes on. Right after we finished our first stage in Harbour Mills this morning our car overheated and we lost all the antifreeze. Tom diagnosed it as a hole in the top of the radiator on the exact opposite side from the hole that was patched on Sunday. We were in the village for a breakfast and we were lucky to break down in fromt of Larry and Liz's home. Larry immediately came over and asked how he could help. Well he provided the tools and parts so we could make a temorary patch to the...

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Just returned from a quick dinner after a 13 1/2 hour day driving and it was a great time.Tom and I left for the arena for our breathalyzer (we passed) and to pick up our can at 6:45 am. We departed for Davidsville and had a 50 km transit drive to our first racing stage. It was a 5.5 km drive at 90 Kph (fast), however because it was raining and the course was wet the race committee changed the course to condition 2 which lowered the speed by 5 kph. Right after the first stage there was a 7 km drive on a gravel road to stage two. We did not realize that the committee changed to condition one, therefore we were a little late. We then had a 40 km transit stage to Musgrave Harbour.That was a fun fast 90 Kph stage over 6 Km  with a section in town that was designed to slow you down. It did but we were determined to get back to target speed and in doing so we slid around one corner in town with our tires squelling in front of a big group of spectators. We lost a few seconds in that stage but we had a blast. After some...

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I will start with the last ride of the day. I Started about 6:30 pm and it was a 7.34 Km run through the Gander Community Center. This is a fairly new (maybe 10-15 year old) residential development. There were 19 ninety degree right and left turns through this neighborhood and and the average speed for our division was 60 Kph. The time that we had to complete this section was 6 minutes and 53 seconds. Tom was driving and he took off like a bat. We needed to get up to average speed and maintain it throughout the course. my job was to always keep relaying the speed to Tom as he could only watch the road and concentrate on keeping the car in the road. He did a masterful job of getting to and maintaining our speed on a very challenging course. I could not imagine going any faster but there were cars in the targa division that had a average speed 25 kilometers higher. Tom finished the stage three seconds over our target time which was amazing. It was an incredibly fun and adrenalin filled stage and a great way to end...

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OK I need to say that I am watching the Bills game as I am writing this entry. I can't believe that the bills are up 7-0, hopefully they can keep it up. OK back to the race. We had a long day which included 7 race stages along with transit stages (traveling to racing stages) we covered about 350 miles today. Today was a rainy windy day in the mid fifties. We left St John's at 7:30am and drove to Argentia for the first stage. The race stages are on closed roads and we were flying through the stages. Tom figured out the computer and we were confident we could maintain the average speed which ranged from 50-90 kilometers. After the second stage The village of Placentia hosted a breakfast for the competitors at the "Placentia Star of the Sea Hall". All the local people have been extremely hospitable. The locals are all along the course watching the racing stages and cheering us on. As the day progressed the clouds lifted and the sun came out so the race committee raised the speed on the course as it dried out. We...

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Started the day with the drivers meeting which ended with a blessing with the official Targa Pastor (who is competing). After some coaching on how to use our rally computer, we drove down for the ceremonial start at the Keg which is on St. John's waterfront. After the start we all headed to the the Flatrock stage. Of course we got temporarily lost (along with many other drivers) and we made our way to the first stage. The Flatrock stage is 5 km and we took off with gusto when we got the green light. There were hundreds of spectators as the competitors flew around the course. There were straight-aways and hairpin turns and the objective was to maintain and average of 60 km around the course. We had some difficulty with our computer which we will correct before the start of the race. After the first stage we all drove to the Cape St. Francis school for a delicious lunch of Cod soup (it was great) and sandwiches. When we got to the schools there were many youngsters who were asking all the drivers for their autographs....

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We arrived in Argentia Newfoundland at 2:30 pm and we had a beautiful smooth crossing. We are grateful that we did not run into any storms like that did two weeks ago (hurricane Bill) when everyone on board was sick. Tom caught a fleeting glimpse of a whale and otherwise there were blue skies and calm seas. There were about 200 people on board (capacity is 1200) and many of the people that we talked to were from Kingston, Ont. Rochester, Newark NY, Silver Lake, ect... We talked to two  guys from Owego, NY who were going to Newfoundland to moose hunt. They cautioned us not to run into any moose as there are over 100,000 on the island. We assured them we would not. After arriving in Argentia we had a 125 Kilometer (about 80 miles) drive to St. John's. We arrived in St. Johns around 4:30pm and completed our registration and we met Scott and the service crew who showed us our car. We toured the car exhabit area and saw some amazing cars. Porsche's, BMW's Subaru's Mini Coopers, NSU's, Sunbeam, Audi's, ect.. Many of...

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Tom and I just boarded the ferry and will be sailing at 11pm (10 pm eastern time) for our fourteen hour sail to Argentia Newfoundland. Had a great drive today leaving Fredericton NB early this morning and detoured north along the coast (Northumberland Strait) where we could see Prince Edward Island for about 50 miles. Then we continued  along the main roads to New Glasgow where we had a good lunch. After lunch we headed northeast on Rt. 104 and crossed over the causeway to Cape Breton Island in the early afternoon. We were a little ahead of schedule so we decided to drive the eastern portion of the cabot trail and saw some breathtaking views of Cape Breton and the Atlantic Ocean. We arrived at the Ferry terminal at around 6:00pm and put our car in line for the 9:00 pm loading. We then walked several hundred yards into North Sydney and had dinner at The Black Spoon Bistro, which was recommended to us. If you are ever in North Sydney Nova Scotia you must eat there. The food, atmosphere and service was tremendous....

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Today we traveled 650 miles and just pulled into Frederickton New Brunswick. Beautiful day of driving a good part of it along the St Lawrence River. Drove through Montreal, by Quebec City and then headed east to New Brunswick. Yesterday did not start well. As Tom was driving the Porsche to put it on the trailer he heard a loud crunch and then all was silent. It appears that the crankshaft let go (tom thinks there might have been a crack in it) which caused the camshaft to break into three pieces which resulted int the head frying. Needless to say Tom was devastated. After calls to Cathy and myself we decided to continue the trip and watch the race. I called the race registrar and told her our situation and she (Alexandra) said there were several cars that we could reasonably rent to compete in. So we are back in the race!!! We will be competing in a Porsche 944. We are sad that we cannot do it in Tom's Porsche, however we are very excited that we will be competing. Today Tom was talking about how he can modify...

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