Would you like a little Garnish with that? prelim standings

A beautiful day for driving – clear blue skies, cool temperatures – and still with the incredible scenery.

We started at Little Bay East on a run to Harbour Mille. A bit of fast stuff, then a deviation through a village, and a then into a long hilly run into the village. Two speed changes – 70 to 62 to 87. Everybody had a tough time in the Little Bay East section. I think it's a psychological thing – when you read “DANGER – steep downhill over bump into Square Right at Tee, exposure to ocean”, it kinda throws you off. Exposure means that it's open, you can fall off the road. Jane nearly clipped the ITC sensor box on one of the other corners; we ended up 10 down at the ITC, which means a 5 second penalty. However, I don't think that anyone is clean after today. On the return run, in reverse over the same road, I got off notes in the village, and Jane just drove the tape and arrows. She drove the wheels off the thing, and zeroed it. Who needs a navigator...

Harbour Mille is at the end of a road (go figure), with a current population of about 100. We had an hour and a half there to buy some breakfast at the fire hall, and walk around. Words won't do it justice, so you'll have to wait for the pictures.

After the return run, it was off to Mooring Cove. 37 km/h average – boring, for the spectators, at least. We had another slow stage yesterday which only 4 of the 14 GT managed to zero. The others were way too fast at the ITC in the middle. So this is just a check for this class to keep us on our toes. Of course, the Targa class gets to do 80 to 95, depending on the classification of the car. Then Marystown North, an in-town stage, with a couple of deviations into crescents, some high speed stuff (Jane managed to get all four tires squealing on this one acute right into a long stretch). I'm pretty sure we cleaned it. We saw one ITC, and were able to slow for it. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn the camera on.

The Garnish stage is very tough. 90 km/h to start, and you had better be up in time (early) to the max window (5 seconds) because it gets very tight in the village at 62 km/h. Square right, square left, square left, uphill, through a long jog right, uphill past the church to a hard right down to a jog right, tee left narrow, hairpin right, acute left – all within 1.3 km. Then back up to 94 while you're still in the village, out to a long stretch. We entered Garnish 4 up, and left at about 15 down. I'm sure there was an ITC in there, but nobody saw it.

It's 7 pm (an early day), and I've got to take the car over to the arena for the car show.

More later tonight.

9:45
The preliminary results have been posted for Leg 4. And.....
we're third. Ferdinand Trautsmandorff and his son Christoph are still running clean, and Alan Kearley and Greg Martin, 2007 winners, are second, having taken a 7 second penalty today. We ran clean, it turns out, and are in third with 8 seconds in penalties, which we incurred yesterday.  Brian Jarvis, a previous competitor, and Daphne Sleigh are fourth, more than 10 seconds back of us.

That 5 second possible penalty at the ITC in Little Bay East? Early set-up crews set out the tape, signs, arrows and the ITC equipment. Sometimes there just aren't enough volunteers to man them when the time comes.

Tomorrow – 9 stages, 3 second window. We work our way back to St. John's. The forecast is for rain, both here in Marystown and in St. John's. Our first stage, Boat Harbour, is 24 km. long at an average of 88 – and that's the rain speed. Brigus will be run twice; the speed for our class will be 48 km/h.

Bruce