Five thrilling miles of Targa Newfoundland with Randy Pobst

It’s a sunny morning, about 9 a.m. in Newfoundland, and Paul Abbott, navigator, and I are about to leave the line for the John Curran Memorial Stage of the 2025 Targa. No practice, no drive-throughs.  

The road here is damp and drying. We’re in the Hume Media 2013 Mini GP; it’s near stock, with the required roll bar.  

Three, two, one and we’re off. No warmups, just go, like a big 5-mile autocross on closed public roads. It’s a narrow asphalt lane with limited sightlines, curving through hedges and nice homes, dodging the occasional nasty pothole or gravel patch.  

Taching out first, second, some of third. Legal speed: 20 mph. We’re approaching 70.  

Route book says R3 down with two caution exclamations, dropping steeply down to a heavily graveled left onto the harbor road, sliding toward a mild guardrail that’s the only thing between the Mini and a dip in the ocean.

Through the gears flat out again, winding past waterfront homes and small businesses. We touch our class limit of 96 mph–that’s 155 klicks Canadian–cutting through a kink where I just can’t keep my foot down, then curse myself as we make it easily enough.  

Paul warns of an L3 in 200 meters, but I can’t make it out in the jumble of trees, buildings, caution tape, light poles and a huge pickup parked across the road. I brake Hawk Performance hard–the Mini GP has M2 front calipers stock–and initiate a turn into someone’s driveway as Paul shouts, “No, left up there!” and we Skandi-fling back right then left into a tight-steep-short uphill with a drainage swale I avoid at what would have been the apex and bog second, making mental notes to go flat at kink, brake later to turn after that power pole, and use first next time.

Meanwhile, tach out second and most of third, as this curvy lane is dry but narrows with speed and foliage and the route book leaves us “YOYO” (Targa for “you’re on your own”–many turns are not in the book).  

I touch fourth and hope I’m not wrong about this climbing blind kink, adrenaline pumping with foot on floor, counting and capitalizing on sticky Yokohama A052s. Over the crest, we wind down in 80-90 mph sweepers barely wider than the Mini, and Paul warns, “Black spot in L4,” meaning a crash in the past–a tricky decreasing bend.  

We sweep around, blind again, then brake hard and blow a stop sign, getting back up to third again, heading for a church lot, slaloming huge potholes right then left and rolling across marbles back onto another harbor road and up to top of fourth.  

“Where’s that side road, Paul?!”  

“Point-five kilometer L4 into R3, caution mud,” Paul calmly responds.  

Hawk brakes down for a favorite sideswipe into a one-lane piece of the old road, half dirt, brushing mirrors on the pines both sides and revving out third as we rejoin the main two-lane, dodging everything that might bend wheels or worse.  

Cruising curves in fifth gear at our 96 mph limit, the Mini is stable but it’s hard to see around that kink ahead. L4 fast onto tiny side road, then hard brake for L2 onto a wooded alley half that size, a barely one-lane twisty.  

It’s climbing up and we’re hangin’ tires off both sides when there’s 20 feet of a half-done repave job that we skim through flat in second, hoping we clear. We do! And then we see skid marks where someone else didn’t–but no car, so we late-apex it and adrenalize our way up to fourth, through fast sweepers opening up to 1.5 lanes wide, and Paul says, “Finish 400 meters go-go-go,” and my brain screams, “You sure this doesn’t tighten up?”

Then there’s the yellow finish signs at 80 in a 20 mph, and we fist bump as we ease her down to get our time at the stop.  

Whew, pant-pant. We’re 30 seconds early and proud of it. That was one 5-mile stage, and at Targa Newfoundland, we do 300 miles of them over a week. It’s a big island.  

Are you intrigued? I’m addicted. Nowhere else in North America can Grassrooters like us run an event like this.

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