It’s been a case of ‘all roads leading to Nelson’ this week as the country’s top tarmac rally specialists prepare to contest an all-new Targa event in the Nelson/Tasman region this weekend.
Targa South Island 2022 is a two-day (Sat Oct 15-Sun Oct 16) event comprising of 7 closed road special stages per day (for a total of 237.73km) and just 353.63km of touring in-between.
First car away from the Annesbrook Event Centre in Stoke at 8.35am this Saturday will be the Ford 105E Anglia of Queenstown-based husband and wife duo Dennis and Susanna Dowling.
The rest of the 37-strong competition field will follow at one-minute intervals with the Mk 2 Ford Escort BDA of top local prospects Aston Wood and Chris Lancaster seeded 11th and fellow locals Peter Jones and co-driver John Ludlow (Mk 1 Ford Escort) and the BMW 325i of Bruce Farley and his co-driver Glen Warner 13th & 14th respectively.
Event favourites, courtesy of wins in both previous Targa events held here this year, are Cam Ross (main photo) from Wellington and his Tauranga-based co-driver Matthew Buer (Subaru WRX Sti ) who are seeded 15th ahead of fellow tarmac rally specialists David Rogers and co-driver Shane Reynolds (Mitsubishi Evo 10 – 16th) and 2WD class protagonists Marcus van Klink & co-driver Matt Richards from Christchurch (Mazda RX8 26B – 17th ), Mike Tubbs and co-driver Richard Scoular from Hamilton (BMW M2 – 18th) and Andrew Oakley and co-driver Mike Hutchins from Christchurch (Audi RS5 – 19th)
With a further 20 crews lining up to contest the Nelson One Day Tarmac Rally, an event-within-an-event on Saturday which doubles as the final round of the 2022 Mainland Rally Championship, the competition side of things remains in good heart.
The real growth, in recent years, however, has been in the concurrently run but untimed Targa Tour, and the more recently introduced Targa Time Trial.
This weekend for instance there are 39 cars entered in the Targa Tour and 35 in the Time Trial, another event-within-an event expertly run by Vintage Car Club on NZ (VCCNZ) event steward Rod Corbett.
Though the whole ‘Top of he South’ area was left battered and bruised by a freak mid-winter storm system, Event Director Peter Martin said that because so much of the basic route had been planned, plotted, and presented to the relevant local body authorities well before the storms hit, ‘ we were actually treated very well by our colleagues in councils across the region.’
“In particular,” he said last night, “I would like to acknowledge the support of the Tasman District Council and the numerous community groups which have assisted us.”
Spectators are more than welcome to come and check out the new event with all relevant stage maps, stage times and itinerary information available to download from the Targa NZ website, www.targa.nz
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