Day 2 of the 2010 running of Targa Newfoundland is in the books, having been a frustration day for The Garage both here at home and more importantly, on The Rock. In the years that we’ve followed our friends Gary Faules and Coop as they competed in La Carrera Panamericana, we’ve had little trouble getting daily reports out of rural Mexico. Getting information from rural Canada is proving to be more difficult.
Some heavy digging today produced a few more photos from Sunday’s prologue event and some from the official event shooter from yesterday. No news of today until the time sheets were posted early in the evening. A quick glance shows our man Crash Corrigan as a DNF today, but without any official explanation and no press release. After blasting messages all over Facebook and Twitter, with no responses, I decided to break down and call Crash on his cell. Surprisingly, he had signal and actually answered the call.
Fortunately, the pumpkin is still straight and Crash and his co-driver Paul Abbott are in one piece too. It seems they’ve had a bit of an exasperating day. First, an oil line fitting sprung a leak. The resulting spray coated the underside of the Escort nicely enough until it caught fire on the exhaust. They got the fire out and began a 100 km transit towards Gander to make some minor repairs, when suddenly the gearbox lost 2nd gear. As of a couple of hours ago, Crash and his Co-Piloto were in a parking lot somewhere on the side of the road attempting to get the car to St. Johns, a mere 300 km away. Repairing the gearbox may be no small feat, as this is no ordinary Ford Escort RS. This one is hiding a Honda S2000 drivetrain under the bonnet, mainly for the sake of reliability. So much for best laid plans. The chances of finding a 2nd gear shaft bearing for an S2000 transmission in Newfoundland are likely quite slim. If it can be done, our man Crash will make it happen.
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