The fifth and final day of the 2023 Targa New Zealand rally included five stages run within close proximity to Masterton and totaled 137kms of racing distance. The sun finally shone though for racing to be held on completely dry roads.
On the first stage the Subaru of Rory Calliway took 22-seconds out of Marcus Van Klink’s (Mazda RX7) lead to bring it down to just 39-seconds with four more stages remaining. However, their hard work was undone in the following stage when their car became light after a compression forcing them to hit a fallen tree.
With Calliway out, Van Klink extended his lead to 4-minutes 23 seconds over second placed Jason Gill in a VW Polo. Tony Quinn was another casualty when his car encountered a mechanical failure at the end of the stage.
For the remainder of the day the Van Klink/Richards pairing chose to take it easy and get the car home to the finish line. In doing so they became the first winners with a rotary-engined car in the Targa NZ’s 30-year history.
“The car was good all week with no dramas,” commented van Klink. “We nailed it in the wet. It’s been a long-time dream to win Targa, especially after the last few years of failure. I didn’t have to do anything at service, just refuel and change tires”.
The Gill/Little partnership secured the runner position 3-minutes 41 seconds behind Van Klink. Third position went to Mike Tubbs and his co-driver Matt Bailey in the BMW M2.
After retiring from the five-day Targa with mechanical problems, Brian Green and co-driver Fleur Pederson had full repairs made to the car and re-entered the regional two-day event of which they finished third. The Regional Two-Day was won by Martin and son Sam Dippie in a Porsche GT3 RS. Second place went to Bruce Herbert and co-driver Christen Herbert.
The Classic 2WD class was won by Bruce Farley in a BMW 325. The Modern 2WD class win went to Mike Tubbs. The production 4WD was won by Andrew Oakley, and the Allcomers was won by Marcus Van Klink.
Full results can be viewed at Chrissport.kiwi
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