Having excelled in last year's multi-terrain World Cup Rally, the Bermudian pair of Terry Reynolds and Mike Smith are about to test themselves on tarmac.

They are preparing to compete in Targa Newfoundland 2003 which takes place September 13-22 in the Canadian province. The seven-day rally involves five competitive legs on 500 km of closed roads within a 2,000 km route. There are seven or eight stages within each leg of competition.

"It will be all open roads and closed stages. In Newfoundland they actually close towns and villages and businesses and schools for the day as the cars drive through various place. Apparently, it's an amazing event and half of Newfoundland gets involved in it.

"It's like a national day when the race comes through a particular town. It's North America's premier tarmac event," explained Reynolds, who drives while Smith navigates.

The duo will compete in the Targa Class - Modern category and are currently getting their one-year-old Ford Focus ready for this assignment.

"It needs a lot of work. We're going to take it apart in the next few days and rebuild a lot of it. Then we're going to install a two-litre engine to upgrade it from a 1400cc World Cup car.

"It should be very, very quick after that," said Reynolds.

The two will be up against some stiff rivals. However, some of their peers in Canada think they could have an advantage in one important respect - driving.

"Our little Ford Focus is competing against Porsches and Subaru WRX Turbos so we are up against it.

"I was talking to some Canadian drivers and they think that because we can actually drive - some of these guys are great on a straight line but they can't get around corners too quickly - our car will be nippy enough to get them on the corners. It just depends what the straight sections are like.

"If there are long stretches where some cars can do 150 mph and we can only do 100 mph we'll soon start losing time but we're hoping to out-drive them," said Reynolds.

Smith, too, will have an additional challenge as he encounters a navigational system called pace notes for the first time.

"That's basically where you call every corner, every bump, everything. That's going to be new for me. I didn't have that last time so it's a higher level of navigation. It's what you've got to do if you want to play in this game.

"I've been researching what the Targa is all about and looking at how they handle navigation. I feel very confident and I am really looking forward to it," said Smith, who enjoyed his navigational baptism in last year's World Cup that took them across Europe from London, England to Athens, Greece.

Regarding their decision to opt out of this year's World Cup, they explained that - unlike what usually occurs in this annual race - this year's World Cup will be held in Tunisia over two weeks rather than traverse a dozen European nations.

Such a lengthy period of time in the desert would be extremely harmful to their vehicle.

"Last time I did the Sahara event it destroyed the car completely and we were not prepared to destroy this car over one event. It's in the desert and it's rough and the stages are so bad. I know it's going to be bad this year because they have introduced a four-wheel-drive class.

"So, we're going to choose our events and go where it suits us. If it reverts to a long-distance race through a number of countries we'll go back and do the World Cup again," elaborated Reynolds.

For now, they are concentrating on the Targa Newfoundland, eager to put Bermuda's name on the rallying map again.

Any persons or businesses interested in contributing to the Reynolds/Smith rally sponsorship can contact them at 799-9090.