By Tammi Hull, Pit Stop, 2006
Tammi Hull describes her adventures during Targa 2004 as a co-driver to Bill Arnold and in 2005 as a crew member for Bill and co-driver Alan Ryall, the overall winners.
Eight seconds. That was the penalty time Bill and I took on stage 8 of the 4th day of the 2004 Targa. And it was the reason why I was dedicated crew for Bill and his not-the-mother-of-my-child navigator, Alan, for the 2005 event.
Ultimately, we received a total of 10 seconds for the entire 2004 event. We got 2 seconds on the Fortune stage, the 6th stage of the 4th day. We had “zeroed” every other stage until that time and every stage after.
(When we finished the Fortune stage and realized we had gotten our first penalty points – 1 point per second – Bill turned to me and said, “I could zero it if I did it again right now” and I replied “I wonʼt be in the car!” The Fortune stage was a new one in 2004 and had a lot of dirt and gravel at the corners and apexes, so we were sliding a lot. There were a couple of times when I thought Bill was losing control of the car and once I thought he came perilously close to hitting a building, but he has a different story.)
The Targa Newfoundland schedule is tight during the competition days – you have time allotted for the transits and not much extra time is added for gas stops. You stop for gas whenever you can, which isnʼt often. In 2004, we shared a crewman with a couple of other teams and he was carrying gas for all of us. But in the afternoon of the 4th day, we didnʼt pass any gas stations that were open. And as we closed dangerously in on Empty, we couldnʼt reach our crewman by cell phone. Our competition stage was in Marystown and 99% of the town had closed down to watch us pass through.
So there we were, at the start of the last stage of the day with not enough gas to complete the stage. Fellow competitors tried to give us some of their gas, but we couldnʼt find anything to successfully use as a siphon. We knocked on the doors of several homes in the area, with no luck. Finally one spectator walking by overheard us discussing the situation and offered us the ʻfuelʼ in his 2 stroke engine. We were desperate enough to accept it, even though it had oil mixed in with the gas. And as we drove through the stage, a stage that Bill had previously been able to “zero”, we could feel the 2 stroke fuel stumbling through the Bavariaʼs engine, giving it fits and making it buck.
Since Bill had already determined, midway through the 2004 event, that he was slower with me in the right seat, I volunteered to be dedicated crew for 2005 after that stage. Getting 8 of our 10 total seconds on one stage because we ran out of gas was exasperating. So it was my intention to make sure that this didnʼt happen to Bill in 2005.
In preparation for 2005, I made sure we shipped plenty of spares and 2 of our race fuel jugs with the Bavaria. I requested a station wagon or minivan for my car rental. I registered as crew and ensured that I would receive any and all information so that I could meet the Bavaria at every stage if needed. And I rented 2 satellite phones to hopefully ensure that Bill could reach me in case of emergency.
As our departure date approached, some of the plans changed. I became the crew for 3 BMW teams – Bill and his new co-driver Alan Ryall from Canada in the FrankenBavaria, GGCers Scott Smith and Peter Guagenti in the monster not-quite-an-E30 M3 and also first timers Bruce Smith from New Hampshire and his co-driver Alex Brousseau from Quebec in Bruceʼs stock E30 M3. Since Alex was towing Bruceʼs car to the event, we decided that I would be driving his Suburban for the competition week.
We loaded Scott and Billʼs spares into Alexʼs Suburban and barely had room for everyoneʼs suitcases. And did I mention that I had 21 month old Derek tagging along too? Oh, this was going to be fun. Maybe not.
I almost bailed on the whole plan because the thought of driving all day long with Derek strapped into his 5 point car seat didnʼt appeal to me, or him. But I had made a promise and I determined to make it work for all of us, especially Derek.
We arrived in St. Johnʼs, Newfoundland a few days early. We wanted Bill and Alan to be able to practice giving and receiving instructions. We also wanted to be sure that the car was in the best condition possible to start the event.
Because Bill doesnʼt “do” email, Alan and I had corresponded frequently in the months leading up to the event. I had assured Alan that he was over-thinking the information he planned to give Bill in the stages. Alan was borrowing his navigatorʼs Timewise rally computer and had made sure that he knew how to use every function it offered. The Timewise can give the team a lot of different types of information, but I knew that Bill didnʼt care about most of it – he basically cared about when to turn and where to turn. Alan didnʼt believe me until after he and Bill did some test runs.
We met Alan, a regular driver in a Canadian off-road rally series, and his wife Carolyn, the first year we all did Targa Newfoundland, in 2002. Alan and Carolyn Ryall won the Touring competition overall that first year, and like Bill, have rules that were created because of their success in the event. The Ryalls were competing in Alanʼs daily driver Subaru. After the event, Carolyn told Alan he should put a cage in the Subaru and compete in the Targa competition. He quickly put a cage in the car before she changed her mind.
In 2003, Alan and his co-driver Glenn competed in the Targa competition, and in Greenspond, a new stage for 2003, crossed the finished line at a high rate of speed exiting over an off camber left turning crest that was not in the pace notes and slid off the road, totaling the Subaru. They walked away and finished the event using their tow vehicle and competing in the Touring competition since it didnʼt have a cage. That crest now has a “triple caution” and is in the pace notes. In 2004, Alan and Glenn were back volunteering as high ranking officials of the event. And when it came time to find a new navigator for Bill, Alan was our first choice. Our only question was would Alan really want to be Billʼs navigator?
I was concerned, as was Alan, that transitioning to the right seat might be hard for him since he would have no control of the steering wheel. He kept telling me he trusted Bill but then heʼd get concerned when he heard reports of how Bill was making the car even faster than the year before.
My pre-event tasks were to ensure that all 3 of my teams had everything they needed for the event – thankfully Scott and Peter didnʼt need much of anything. For Bruce and Alex I made numerous trips to Wal-Mart and Canadian Tire with Derek in tow and had to bribe him with new toy cars on every trip since he hates shopping.
Finally the competition day arrived. All 3 of my teams did well the first day, although Bruce discovered he gets slightly carsick and Alex discovered he was a better driver than navigator, so their plan of splitting the driving was quickly tossed. And I was in search of anti-nausea drugs.
For months before the event, the trash talking and bench racing had revealed some serious contenders for the overall win, in particular, Casey Holzman from North Carolina in a Porsche. Unfortunately, Casey wrecked his car in the stage before lunch on the first day and it was damaged beyond what could be repaired in time to complete the event.
Bill and Alan zeroed the entire day. At dinner, Alan and I talked about how he had become so comfortable with Billʼs driving that he was telling Bill to go faster. Once a driver, always a driver!
Day 2 did not start as well for the Bavaria Boys. In the dayʼs first stage, Alan was late calling a turn and with a corner worker blocking their view of a street sign, Bill hesitated a bit long before finally making the turn, getting 25 seconds/points in the process. Bill and Alan were convinced that their chance at the overall win was over.
I laughed at them and repeatedly reminded them that it was ONLY the 2nd day of a 5 day competition and predicted that anything could happen to anyone. Also, while Bill and Alan were one of just 4 teams that were “zero” at the end of day 1, all 4 teams took penalties in the first stage of day 2, in part because the roads were wet. But Bill and Alan took the most penalties of the four.
Anyways, my prediction proved true, as team after team suffered mechanical failures, or off road incidents. My vote for craziest ʻincidentʼ was the team that spun off the road, got back on the course and the inexperienced navigator was confused and lost. Both driver and navigator ignored the yells and pointing from marshals and spectators as they piloted their Dodge Charger the wrong way on the course. The next team, in a Toyota Supra, soon encountered the wrong way team and had to drive off the road to avoid a crash, damaging someoneʼs fence and the Supra. The wrong way team then spun around and started following the Supra through the course, but since the navigator had no idea where they were, he could not warn his driver about upcoming turns and potential braking points. The Charger weighs just a bit more than the Supra and was not able to use the same braking points and ended up in the woods, their race done due to the damage.
Bill and Alan didnʼt take any more penalties until the Fortune stage in the afternoon of day 4, when they took 5. At this point, Tom Silver and Dave Fuss in a vintage Mustang were leading overall with just 5 total penalty points and they only picked up 8 more points in Fortune. In the last stage on day 4, the Mustang got 2 more points and the Bavaria took on 3.
So going into day 5, the last day, Bill had 33 points and was in the top 5 but the Mustang team had just 15 points and Bill believed he had no chance of taking the overall win. By lunch time on day 5, it seemed certain. Both Bill and the Mustang team had not taken on any new penalties. But then it started to rain… and while all but 1 team took penalties on the last 2 stages, Bill and Alan only took 12 total for the 2 stages, while the Mustang team took 36. Bill and Alan now had a total of 45 while the Mustang had 51!!!
Bill couldnʼt believe it – he had won it overall again!
Unfortunately, day 2 had a different plan for Scott and Peter. The outer CV joint on the half shaft broke on their way into Leading Tickles, a very long stage. The Leading Tickles stage ends at a big ocean-side park and a big 3+ hour party ensues, where moose meat is the delicacy of the day. There is only one road in and out of the park and I had to hustle to get my rig out there before the road was closed to the public.
The park has a nice playground, so I left Derek with Bill and headed off to retrieve Scott and Peter, doing my first ever ʻrope towʼ to bring them back into the park. However, no one had a spare half shaft with them, and there wasnʼt one in the multitude of supplies in my rig, so the boys were stuck in the park for a few hours and had to be flatbedded back to town. They missed 5 stages and incurred nearly 97 minutes in penalties. Itʼs sad because they were doing so well until then, just 33 penalty points. Ultimately, they ended up with 87 earned penalty seconds/points plus the nearly 97 minutes. If theyʼd only had the 87 seconds, they would have finished 5th overall, won their class and finished 2nd in the Modern division. But donʼt mention this as it will only make them sad.
Alex and Bruce did well in their first time out. They finished 12th overall, 2nd in class 7, and 8th in the Modern division, with a score of 8 minutes and 53 seconds. The best part was that they made all their Targa Trophy times and won their first Targa plates.
Derek and I had some fun along the way too. Iʼm pretty sure I found every available park or playground in the Targa area, letting Derek stretch his legs and lungs for several breaks each day.
We did have a couple of problems though. On the 2nd day, the guys stowed their luggage into the back of the Suburban and accidentally, unknowingly, popped open the breather valve on one of the fuel jugs. By the time Derek and I hit the road to follow, the ʻBurb was filled with gas fumes. We bundled up and I drove with the windows open, airing out the SUV. Finally I figured out that there was a leak and found the popped breather valve and what had spilled out on the bumpy roads.
On the 3rd day, one of the fuel jugs toppled over as I rounded a curve but I didnʼt know it until I smelled the fumes. Ah, 2 days in a row of driving with the windows open on a cold day.
On the 4th day, the luggage was tossed in, instead of placed neatly into pre-assigned locations, and a fuel jug was knocked over and leaked gas onto one of Billʼs bags, while also popping open a breather valve. I found the opened breather valve, didnʼt find any spilled gas and figured the fumes would go away after time. They didnʼt. And it was raining. Hard. I didnʼt have time to unpack the back of the ʻBurb for most of the day but eventually I found the problem and was able to air out the bag during a long stop. It also didnʼt help that I had recently upgraded, or so I thought, my Verizon cell phone plan. But I was shocked to learn that my cell phone no longer worked in Newfoundland, like it had the prior 3 years. Verizonʼs only solution was to ship my phone to the US, reprogram it and ship it back. Because we were constantly moving, I couldnʼt risk losing my phone, so I had no cell phone service until we left Newfoundland and headed to Oktoberfest, but thatʼs a whole other story.
By this time, I was pretty tired of driving all over Newfoundland as a chase vehicle, and Derek was done too. So on the morning of day 5, the last day, I told Bill and Alan as they headed out that I didnʼt care what they thought about their chances of winning overall. But I did know one thing – they HAD to win it for me, to make it worth all the work and hassle Iʼd gone through. Only there were swear words involved and I wasnʼt suggesting, I was demanding.
So Tom Silver and Dave Fuss blame me for their loss of the overall win on the last day in Targa Newfoundland, and they might just be right.
While the windows were open, a dragonfly flew in and died. I found the little bugger hanging over the rear door and thought I had shooed him out. It turned out that he had blown across the SUV and landed on the side of Derekʼs car seat, unbeknownst to him since he was sleeping. We were driving at a brisk pace, trying to get to the start of a stage at an agreed upon time when he woke up and started screaming. He had spotted the dragonfly and wanted it removed. I couldnʼt blame him. The thing had died and was hanging just inches from his face.
Itʼs a good thing we never needed the satellite phones since mine spent the entire week searching for a signal. Next year? Thereʼs no way in hell Iʼll be crew again. I think Iʼll join the partners group that comes in for the last day. They have a nice dinner in St. Johnʼs on Thursday night and are then shuttled out to the premiere, catered viewing spots on Friday.
Or maybe Iʼll compete as a driver…
The original story appeared in Pit Stop, a publication of Empire Sports Car Association in Santa Rosa, California.
All pictures taken by photographer Andrew Harvey.
Targa Newfoundland returns Sept. 10-17, 2026.
Targa 2026 Stages: https://targanfld.com/competition-stages/
Getting to Newfoundland: https://targanfld.com/getting-here/
Where to Stay: https://targanfld.com/where-to-stay/
Our Targa Communities: https://targanfld.com/our-communities/
Visiting Newfoundland & Labrador: https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/