Targa Newfoundland car rally targeted over logo on driver’s racing suit

As teams ramp up for next month's Targa Newfoundland, the high-profile car rally is getting some unwelcome attention from the feds.

Health Canada apparently is investigating whether the event and one of its participants last year violated the Tobacco Act that bars advertising of tobacco products, CBC News reports.

Targa Newfoundland founder Doug Mepham says organizers recently got a letter from Health Canada telling them the Tobacco Act states "no person may display a tobacco product-related brand element or the name of a tobacco manufacturer in a promotion that is used, directly or indirectly, in the sponsorship of a person, entity, event, or permanent facility."

The alleged infraction? One of last year's participants was spotted wearing a driving suit with a tobacco company logo on it.

The display couldn't have been more prominent.

Calgary car dealer Zahir Rana plunged his $2.3-million Edo Ferrari Enzo Evolution XX into a tidal river in Marystown, Nfld., during one stage of the rally, causing an estimated $100,000 damage and not a little embarrassment.

In a video that went viral, Rana was shown wading out to the waterlogged car in his red Ferrari driving suit, which had a big Marlboro logo on the back.

Mepham said Rana bought the vintage fire suit, previously used by Ferrari Formula One driver Rubens Barrichello, at a charity auction. Targa organizers can't regulate what drivers wear, he added.

"You have people coming from all over the country, North America, Europe to attend this event," Mepham told CBC News. "'Hi, welcome to Newfoundland, show me your pyjamas.' It just doesn't seem like a reasonable request."

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Mephan stressed the event, which this year runs Sept. 8-15, has never had a relationship with a tobacco company in its 10-year history. As far as organizers can recall, no competitors have ever had any tobacco sponsorship, advertising or promotional help.

Tobacco companies used to be ubiquitous in sponsoring motorsports around the world but most countries now ban them from using sports and other events to promote their brands.

A blog post on the Toronto Star's Wheels site by editor Norris McDonald compared Health Canada pouncing on Rana's antique fire suit to Winston Smith's work at the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's novel 1984.

"His job was to rewrite history. People and events that existed previously didn't, after he got finished with them. Situations, circumstances, happenings — they all disappeared or were changed substantially when Winston Smith 'revised' the public record."

Rana's suit dates from the time tobacco advertising was legal in Canada and elsewhere, McDonald notes.

"Rana bought himself a souvenir of that time in racing history," he said. "Nothing more."

Health Canada's objection to Rana's vintage suit amounts to trying to revise the historical record and erase any references to tobacco's past role in supporting motorsports, McDonald argues.

"Winston Smith is alive and well and working in Ottawa for Health Canada."