Leg 5

First – I've put up a couple of videos – Fortune and New-Wes-Valley.

http://www.youtube.com/user/silverharerally

Friday was rainy; very rainy. Our first run after leaving Marystown was Boat Harbour, 24 km into the small village of Petit Forte. We were warned about wooden deck bridges – treat them as double or triple cautions. Our first instruction was “easy left over crest downhill into turn easy left over wooden bridge.” So lots of warning to Jane – slack throttle over the bridge; no turning, hit it straight. Turns out, it was about 10 feet long – no issue. We had a good run all the way in; it tightened up as we approached the community, but we pulled across the beam at 1 second down (remember, it's a 3 second window now). We had some breakfast at the hall, and headed out in the continuing rain. The first run was at 88 km/h, heading back was at 90. The rain really got heavy towards the end, but the car was fine on the Potenza's. Again the road got tight coming into town, and there was a triple caution (crest into hard left) near the end. The wooden bridge was right before the finish, and Jane just couldn't make up the time we lost through the twisties and the caution. We were 5 down, incurring at 2 second penalty. However, many people said they were having troubles with their cars hydroplaning in the “ponding”, as they call it here. We didn't have that problem at all. Frank Sprongl, with his 500 hp Audi and race tires, said that he drove using the shoulder for traction. Fortunately, there were only a couple of cars behind him that had to deal with the gravel.

Then a long transit to Osprey Trail East, the reverse of a stage we did Monday. That was a gimme at a Road Condition 3 (wet, standing water) speed of 86. Then another long transit to Harbour Grace, a new stage this year. We waited, and listened to the ham radio as they tried to shut the town down. The volunteer marshalls were letting people in as the course closing car was going through. The course car tried again, and even the mayor was there at the start line, on the phone, trying to get people to plug the holes. We could hear the clerk of the course calling for the big cheese, and the stage was eventually cancelled. We paraded through town on the course – 12.7 km of back and forth across the main drag, down the main drag, through lanes in people's back yards and front yards. There were ponds, driveways, steep downhill acute turns. It would have been brutal. GT class speed in the rain would have been 60. You've got to see the video we took to believe this – no one would have come out of there without a penalty.

So now one stage is cancelled; now we hustle off to Brigus. We're supposed to do it twice, with lunch between the stages. Brigus is a short 2 km, but tight. There is some elevation change, and a nasty hard right over crest onto a bridge. Much confusion at the start area; limited space for all the cars and marshalls. Brigus 1 was cancelled and we hustled over and grabbed a very fast bite of ham and scallopped potatoes, and boogied back to the car, because we were the third car out, by virtue of our scores from yesterday. It's still raining, and we're off. I forgot to turn on the camera, which is a good thing, because I got off notes right at the beginning, which didn't help when none of the arrows were put up. We ended up zeroing it, no thanks to me.

More to come. We're at a b&b in Deer Lake right now, and we're going to Gros Morne tomorrow. Jane's telling me to shut it down.

Bruce