To Hobart

The Sideling is famous for its tendency to lure competitors into flinging themselves at the scenery; even when it's dry, morning dew dampens the corners, and there are patches where the sun never hits; moss grows on the asphalt. When it rains---as it did on the Sideling this year---it can be a treacherous sluicebox of traps for the unwary.

Teresa and Cheri were working from pace notes, but not the ones they prepared last week; their guide to the Sideling and the other east coast stages came from 1996, and there is always an element of doubt when using others' notes. Cheri balanced the road book and the pace-note book in her lap, ready to pitch the latter if it proved unreliable. As it turned out, their strategy of caution proved wise; some ten competitors came to grief in the Sideling, most sliding off into ditches, others fetching up against mud banks.

Teresa felt the back end of the Sonett wandering out from under toward the ditch in one right-hander, but kept her focus on the road ahead, feeding power and meeting the slide with just the right amount of countersteer, and powered out of disaster. "Ooo!" said Cheri, who had apparently resigned herself to the Yawning Pit, "Good one!"

In fact the Sideling, which had been downgraded to intermediate from dry status, was eventually downgraded to wet. This moved the trophy time from twelve minutes to thirteen (intermediate) and finally to fourteen (wet)---a factor which proved important, because the slippery conditions---even with the wet-gripping Yokohama AVS Intermediates---were compounded by the necessity of slowing for the competitors who had put themselves in the ditches. The blue Sonett finished the stage in 13:03, which would have put the women out of reach for their Targa trophies if the stage had been classed as intermediate.

But the reality was a downpour, and the stage was indeed downgraded to full wet---a fourteen-minute trophy time which kept the Yanks on track for their objective. Still, though subsequent stages were relatively benign---at least for these two after their Sideling adventures; they were less kind to other competitors, including a lovely Jaguar coupe that the pit boys spied on the rocks in the St Mary's Pass stage---there was an air of nervous distraction until it was confirmed that the Sideling had indeed been downgraded to wet, and that the wet time would indeed apply to all competitors.

Friday is a deceptively easy route that brings the cars back to Hobart for a second night. The weather is forecast as mild, and the girls have prepared their own pace notes for tomorrow's stages, but overconfidence has put many a careless competitor off the sides of relatively easy sections. The times are ever more difficult to achieve with any comfort, and at least one Friday stage features two intersections which can easily be overrun if drivers and navigators are not paying strict attention---and the Sideling has demonstrated just how much time can be lost in simple errors. It is a day for deliberate precision as we wind down to the second half of the quest for the Targa trophy.