Antoine L'Estage and co-driver, Nathalie Richard, compete at the Rocky Mountain Rally – Round 2 of the 2009 Canadian Rally Championship. Video by Warwick Patterson. Music track "Burn my Shadow" by UNKLE.

I thought it was just old, but now I¹m told it¹s retro.  Once upon a time TV2GO was covering ski racing and motor sports for CBC Sports.  We pitched the network on a show about rallying and they bought it for broadcast in the fall of 1981.  Nissan Canada was running a factory team at the time with drivers Randy Black and Clive Smith.  We picked the Lobster Rally in Shediac New Brunswick, mainly because it was the next rally on the schedule and we didn¹t want the network to change its mind.  The entry field looked a bit lame, so we invited some ringers to spice up our show.

I¹d worked with John Buffum before with his Triumph program and he was always a worthy addition.  John had just recently started running an Audi Quattro, the very fast but unreliable new contender in World Rally.  Just to keep Nissan competitive, and because they¹d agreed to sponsor the show along with Castrol, I approached their star driver Timo Salonen. He had a conflict but steered me to Rauno Aaltonen, the winner of the ¹67 Monte (Mini Cooper) among many others.  Rauno agreed on a fee to to appear in the TV show and Randy Black generously agreed to move into the right seat of his regular rally car. 

Carol Patterson and I had already produced a couple of rally shows over the short three year history of our partnership, but the sport hadn¹t had much exposure on Canadian TV . So we decided to produce an instructional program that would tell the story of the Lobster Rally while teaching the audience a bit about my favorite sport.  If we could sell some Nissans that would be a bonus.  Castrol was involved to cement their relationship with Nissan dealers.  They had a global reputation as patrons of motorsport and maintained a wonderful film library which they loaned out to car clubs around the world.

So we all arrive in Shediac, New Brunswick which is about as far from Monte Carlo as you can get aesthetically. Call it charmingly rustic or call it a dump – it was a very fine line. Rauno took it all in stride like a real gentleman:  the bunkhouse team accommodations, the picnic tables, plastic bibs and giant crustaceans – he just smiled through it all. Carol shot long interviews with him and we spent two days faking action footage with 16mm film cameras mounted in and on the car.  All the heel-and-toe footage was shot in a parking lot with team members bouncing on the fenders and waving tree bows overhead to make the lighting look like we were moving.

At the start of the rally, I asked Rauno if he could beat John Buffum. “Yes, but only if he breaks”, was his perfectly honest and accurate answer. The Audi didn¹t break and Buffum won easily. We didn¹t fully appreciate it at the time, but we were witnessing a sea change in our sport.  The AWD revolution had just taken place.

Back to Toronto for editing.  The fake scenes and interview material have great potential, but the competition action is lacking and there is the problem of our sponsor not winning. So a re-shoot is called for.  We fly to Finland for the 1000 Lakes with help from FinnAir.  Mikkola and Blomqvist dominate for Audi again, but at least we get lots of great action that can be used to fluff up our Lobster rally lessons.

Back in Canada, we collected a few more bogus jumps and night POV stuff. Rallymaster debuted on CBC to excellent reviews.  The film was added to the Castrol library and Duke Marketing picked it up for global distribution.  I sent Rauno a 16mm print in Turku and he screened it for his rally buddies which yielded the flattering promo blurbs from Henri Toivenen and Ari Vatanen that we put on the video cover. It continues to sell a couple of hundred copies annually, 28 years later.  Carol Patterson shot the whole thing by herself. Jim Harrison was the editor. Paul Chater provided the narration and Rauno Aaltonen will always be The Rallymaster.

Join Antoine L'Estage and Nathalie Richard as they compete on both sides of the border in this season highlights action video.  Watch for a big showdown between Antoine and Ken Block this weekend at Rally of the Tall Pines…more to come on that soon!

Another year, another Targa Newfoundland is in the books.  This year’s edition saw a hotly contested battle for the overall podium, and many dramatic "press-on-regardless" moments that Targa is famous for.  Roy Hopkins and Adrienne Hughes repeated their winning performance in a 1969 BMW 2002.  Jud Buchanan and Jim Adams in the ground-pounding 1967 Acadian Canso found themselves the perennial bridesmaids in second place again this year, and Andrew Comrie-Picard and Jen Horsey brought the new Mitsubishi Evolution X into third place, winning the Modern division in the process.  Check out the highlight video from Targa after the jump…

The final day of competition had its fair share of excitement, with challenger Bill Arnold in his BMW Bavaria sidelined with suspension damage on the second-last stage.  He was able to McGyver a field repair and continue to the finish, but not before losing a lot of time in the process.

One of the showcase stages at Targa, the town of Brigus hosts a narrow, technical, first and second gear blast through the small fishing village.  Featuring a few "gotcha’s", the deceptive corners and narrow sightlines gave some teams an exciting ride.  One corner in particular caught out several competitors, and even the course opening car became close friends with a white picket fence, much to the crowd’s amusement.

The Spirit of Targa award was awarded to the classic mini team of Dave Pledger and Chris Willett from Las Vegas, but the entire "Brick n’ Brute" team was brought to the stage to share in the honours.  Starting even before the event began, they popped a motor before leaving for Targa and were about to cancel their entry in the event. The rest of the team wasn’t going to hear of it, and found a replacement motor for them. When the team of Dyrk Bolger and Terry Milnes crashed on the first day of competition, the incident had a silver lining because the spare parts would be needed to keep "Lucy" the mini alive over the course of the week.  Three motors later, and a parade of repairs to head gaskets, distributors, differentials and more, the pair crossed the finish line in St. John’s with smiles on their faces. Press On Regardless is a favourite saying of rallyists, and it was a suitable discription of the whole team’s attitude towards keeping their teammates on the road.

Targa Newfoundland is a test of motoring endurance like any other, and the actual act of driving is just a small part of the experience.  Whether competing, servicing, volunteering, or photographing the event, everyone walks away with a year’s worth of stories to tell.  Targa will be back again on September 12-18, 2009…start planning and we’ll see you there!

Here is a highlight video reel from Targa Newfoundland 2008.  Watch targanewfoundland.com in the coming weeks for details on the full television program!

Video highlight reel from the wet and muddy 2008 Rocky Mountain Rally, round two of the Canadian Rally Championship.  Thanks to The Easy Rider for the continued support, and Fleet Signs & Graphics for the great banners and decals.