Team VDG takes 2nd Place at the 2008 Targa Newfoundland - Monday, September 22, 2008
 After a grueling 5 days of intense competition, Team VDG's Jud Buchanan & Jim Adams have secured a 2nd place finish both in the Overall and Class 4 Modified Large categories. The team just narrowly missed out on a 1st place finish by only 11 seconds after five days of competition!
Congratulations go out to Roy Hopkins and Adrienne Hughes in their 2002 BMW 69. The team from New York finished first overall in 7th annual Targa Newfoundland, a remarkable repeat performance from Targa 2007.
Andrew Comrie-Picard and Jen Horsey finished up the top 3 positions in their 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution GSR.
Team VDG would like to thank all of our Crew (Chris Gillard, Art Visser and Beth McBlain) and Sponsors (Castrol Canada, Hickman Motors and StaggeredTime Solutions) for their continued support. We would also like to thank all of the volunteers that helped to put on such a great event. Lastly we would of course like to thank the people of Newfoundland for being such friendly hosts and letting us play in their neighborhoods!
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Photo Gallery Updated - Monday, September 22, 2008
 New photos have been added to the official Team VDG Gallery from the 2008 Targa Newfoundland Rally.
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Day 5 Update - Sunday, September 19, 2008
It is 6:00AM and we are on a three hour drive to the start of the first stage. The current standings show that we had a better day than most and have closed the gap. Now it is Arnold with 21 seconds; Hopkins at 25 seconds; McKenzie at 31 seconds; VDG at 33 seconds and ACP at 40 seconds.
Our car is hurting a bit with the clutch going away which makes shifting into second tough without clashing gears. We can deal with it on stages where don't downshftt to first but two very tight stages today will use lots of first to second to first shifts - The Brigus stage is the most important stage for us today.
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Post All Nighter Update / Start of Day 4 - Thursday, September 18, 2008
After pulling an all-nighter to rebuild our vehicles hurting gearbox after losing second gear in yesterday's competition, the team is back to 100%. Special thanks goes out to our crew Chris & Art for getting the vehicle back into tip top shape for the next day's competition. Today the team hit the road at 6AM for another two 30km high speed stages which should give our crew a chance to catch a few winks. "This is by far the most challenging day of the rally" according to team driver Jud Buchanan. Currently 1st place with 2 seconds is Hopkins / Huges; 2nd with 6 seconds is Arnold / Ryan; 3rd with 9 seconds is ACP / Horsey; 4th place with 13 seconds is McKenzie / Alexander; and 5th place with 16 seconds is Team VDG (Buchanan / Adams)); and sixth with 27 second is the Subaru Canada entry (Paynter).
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Day 2 Updates - Tuesday, September 16, 2008
 It's raining! After an exhausting day of competition, the team was still zero after the first 5 stages in the wet but picked up 5 seconds on the rough Glenwood stage in the late afternoon. Frank Sprongl took 2 seconds after a small off on stage 2 but is still the running. Our car is currently being hard on its front brakes and we have lost our 2nd gear synchro but overall the car is very strong and will be back in top shape for competition tomorrow. Two cars went off hard today - Jim Kenzie in the Mini and a team from Halifax in a Cobalt SS. Stay tuned for a more official update once all the scores come in.
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Day 1 Updates - Tuesday, September 15, 2008
After an intense day of competition with 90km of mostly fast stages, 12 cars tied with no plenties! At day's end the team performed a full inspection of the car and found it to be running very good despite having to turn the rotors. The weather is holding out so far which is making driving conditions optimal for the team. The only problem so far is that gas prices jumped 15 cents yesterday! Gotta go drive ....
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Prologue Day Update - Monday, September 15, 2008
 The prologue day went extremely well for Team VDG. The weather was fantastic and the car is performing flawlessly. Some other vehicles were not so fortunate and experienced mechanical problems. There was a huge turnout of spectators so it appears this event just keeps on growing! The team is really looking forward to actual race day. Stay tuned for more updates.
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Need more Targa news? - Saturday, September 13, 2008
You can find even more news and stories on the 2008 Targa Newfoundland Rally and Team VDG at the Wordpress Blog located at http://targa08.wordpress.com. Also, you can find the emails from Jud Buchanan in the form of a discussion thread titled "The Road to Targa" on www.raceshop.ca. These should be near the top of the list under Recent Posts From Raceshop Forums on the home page.
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Pre-Targa Happenings - Thursday, September 11, 2008
The team is now off to St.John's first thing in the morning... arriving at Hickman Motors to clean up the car, the service truck, and themselves. The teams '67 Acadian Canso Sport Coupe rally car gets will be parked as a showroom centre piece until it is called to duty on Friday. The remainder of our crew - Chris Gillard, Art Vissor and Beth McBlain will be arriving Friday to begin the registration process and start to get everything ready to go for Saturday Tech and Registration. The week will get busy quickly for everyone but the team feels everything is off to a great start.
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On the Rock! - Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Team VDG has landed on the rock today after a smooth ferry ride along side some of this year's factory supported targa teams by Subaru and Dodge. Tonight the team will be in Gander to support their local sponsors Hickman Motors. Be sure to stop by and say "hi" to the team (and why not by a car while you are at it;)!
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New Blackberry Photo Gallery! - Wednesday, September 10, 2008
In an effort to keep our fans, friends & family and sponsors up to date with all of the action at this years Targa Newfoundland Rally, Driver Jud Buchanan will be updating the website daily with photos from his Blackberry mobile device. Isn't technology great!
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On The Road Again! - Tuesday, September 09, 2008
 Teammates Jim Adams and Jud Buchanan departed this morning from Pickering and cruised 1250 km to arrive just east of Edmondston for dinner ... at 120 to 125 km/h all day the new beast (tow vehicle) bested 20.0 litres per 100 k! The team is enjoying the start to their 6th adventure together. Jim spent his first 3 years as Crew Chief, the past 2 he's been 'inside' the car as a brilliant co-driver. Jim's a very quick study, he's helped put the top into 2nd Overall his first attempts ... now he's ready for even more fun! Stay tuned to our website for the latest news from Targa Newfoundland!
Tomorrow they head to North Sydney to grab the ferry.
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Castrol sponsors Targa Newfoundland’s only Platinum competitor - Wednesday, September 03, 2008
 This year’s Targa Newfoundland is Jud Buchanan’s seventh escapade on The Rock making him the only competitor eligible to receive the Platinum Targa Plate this year, awarded to a competitor for completing every stage of the rally at a competitive speed for six years in a row. Castrol sponsor logo has been on the modified ’67 Acadian each time it headed east.
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Targa here we come! - Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Testing is complete and the gears are in motion. Team VDG is ready to rock on "the rock"! The team will be hitting the road soon and will be once again challening for the 2008 overall win in Newfoundland. Keep checking our website as we will be trying to keep you up to date on the latest developments and action at this year's event.
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