Raw Motorsport

Today was a little better than yesterday, and all of a sudden we have found some pace. Targa is about getting home every night - people and car intact, and unfortunately every day there is a group who don’t.

Today 400m from the start of a stage, 3 cars came to grief, including 2 that rolled. Every night Paul jokes that we are winners, and he is right. Every day is a race, not just against your competitors, but against the clock and yourself.  You need to pace yourself and as they say, “be there at the end if you want to win”.

We are reminded every night about the battles each of us have with this event, and many competitors end up losing that war.

Reliability, tyres, weather, fuel, navigator and driver need to function for 8 to 10 stages each day at 100%, and then some, just to complete each day. It seams easy, but many stories are told of competitors that come to Targa only once, having not come to grips with the intensity and challenge this event offers.

There are other more famous tarmac rallies from yester year, but in this modern day, I suspect that Targa Tasmania can be put up as one, if not, the most difficult tarmac rally currently available for the average punter. (I don’t expect many of us will ever get to sample the WRC tarmac rallies)

On that note I will close today, feeling comfortable in continuing to achieve our main goal. Arriving safely each night and to be in Hobart on Sunday.

Glyn Crimp’s 924 GT - one of those battles that was lost.

No major hassles today, but also no major results. We had a slow start, and that maybe due to a car that rolled over in stage 4. We were stopped and subsequently had a bad time. Hopefully we will get a derived time, which may make our overall time a little better, but we are already a way down the pack. We will wait and see how it unfolds over the next few days.

We had a great pasta meal tonight, so hopefully a good day tomorrow.

Targa always starts slowly and day 0 (Prologue) is the the best exmaple.  A late start (9:30am) and a 50-60km trip from launceston with a 3:30 minute competitive section then back to launceston represents what we call “Targa Time”.  Lots of hanging around for a small amount of action. I am being a little harsh here as things get more frantic each day, culminating in day 5, which when finished represents about as much competitive driving as one could want.

Unfortunately we had to contend with failure in our electronic gadgets. No video for prologue and no tracking. The first was due to a small problem with the Archos being reboot, and the second a small problem with the driver forgetting to start the tracking function.

All was good and we completed the prologue (which seeds the starting order for Day 1) with no problems other than the brakes catching on fire at the end of stage. No problem as this has given them a heat cycle that is need to bed in the brakes.

Rain has become the topic of conversation as Targa hasn’t been really wet for a number of years. Not to worry, we love the wet.

Early to bed (9:00pm) so unlike me, but we need to expel the drink before the morning … that should not be a problem, we didn’t have that much for dinner.