Racing improves the breed, it's as true for manufacturers as it is for shops like VRPerformance. We've delivered race cars to customers, we've tweaked street cars for the track, and now we're turning to our own in house projects with the formation of VRPerformance Racing. Our goal is not only to compete successfully, but also to take what we learn from our hands on racing efforts and apply it to all of our customer projects. Ultimately we want you to benefit from our experience, our struggles and triumphs at the track.
First up is our entry in the 2012 Targa Newfoundland.
Targa Newfoundland is a tarmac rally. While there are five distinct divisions of competition, there are really only two types of racing going on—Grand Touring and Targa.
Grand touring is like a typical time- speed- distance rally wherein you follow a route and show up at check points as close as possible to an assigned time based on a predetermined average speed. You accrue penalties for every second you miss that time, plus or minus. The average speed required to meet your target time is well within legal limits. You can run a bone stock, un-modified street car in grand touring. There are two divisions in the class: equipped and unequipped. By equipment, the organizers are talking about rally computers, timers, GPS systems—anything that will help you gauge exactly where you are on course and what your average speed is.
Targa class is wide open and much closer to the rallies you see on television beamed in from exotic locales. Competitors race on closed sections of road and try to beat a minimum time for each stage. If you beat the minimum time, come in under in other words, no penalties are received. For every second you are slower than the minimum time, you get penalties.
There are three divisions in the targa class: classic, modern and open. Classic division is for pre-1981 vehicles, modern spans from 1982 to present and open is a catch all class for highly modified cars. There are groups within the divisions to further differentiate the cars, but I won’t go into that minutia or we’d be here forever.
All Targa divisions require safety modifications to the car such as a complete safety cage, harnesses, fire suppression and so on. Drivers and co-drivers must wear personal protective gear including helmets and race suits.
For those keeping track, we will run in “Targa late modern division, level two, large displacement” or simply “Targa Modern 7”