I was going through some boxes of photos and came across this oldie-but-goodie. It will probably surprise most of my friends who know that I don't care for racing (unless horses and jockeys are involved), but I drove in the inaugural Targa Newfoundland road rally in 2002, along with Sylvie Rainville.
We were in the Trial division, and what a time we had. There were some growing pains in the event, and possibly the first was that since no one knew what was going to happen, we were sent to a car race with an SUV. No matter; in fact, after one particularly challenging stage, we proudly overheard someone tell his friend that "I never knew a Jeep could go that f***ing fast!" And we also had a few times when we were sent away from the other racers, and even stopped in the middle of a stage, because the marshalls all drove Jeeps and some people thought we were just officials, not driving participants.
We ended up finishing second in our division, and that's mostly because a storm kept many of us (our team included) from arriving in time for the orientation meetings. When another team complained that they didn't understand the rules, their penalty points were wiped out, and we slipped out of first place.
It was cold, it was wet, it was long days and little sleep, but it was the experience of a lifetime. I've been back to Newfoundland twice since then for vacations, because I just fell in love with the place. What a time it was indeed.