I finally made it to Targa!!!!The whole reason I became a navigator back in 2009 was just so I could experience this event and I was here. This is the top of tarmac rallying and the stuff that happens you just couldn’t dream up. I felt very special when a good navigator mate (Daniel “the ladies man” Wilson) rang me and asked if I would like to navigate in the Zero Car. This is a bit of a privileged role and was a good eye opener for me to see how Targa runs behind the scenes. So with the fundamentals over and me locked in for the nav seat with Darren Fogarty from Victoria another rally driver I have never met and about to jump in a car with. I jumped on a plane and flew down to Tassie. It’s been awhile since I have graced my presence on Tasmania and was feeling good to be back.

I met up with Darren at Symonds Plains Raceway as Targa had put on a ride day for all the sponsors. I have never been to the track before and was a surreal experience it looks so small and not really a race track with its double apex and hairpin corners. Darren wasn’t what I expected either he looked like an IT guru not a rally nut but we got on great. I was excited to chat about what we had to do the next day. I would be navigating in a brand new Mazda 6 turbo diesel which sounds worse than they actually GO well until I get in the car but I will tell you that part later! I got to meet up with Craig Burgess & Patrick Bourke from SSCC with the all mighty GTR. They were having an issue with loss of oil pressure on the track which is so bizarre for this car to have issues like that but that was nothing to what was going to unfold for Craig & Patrick over the next 6 days. Thomas from BT Motorsport and Ivo had come along for the ride as Craig’s service crew and were racking there brains as what could be wrong with the car. They started testing the flow of oil from the oil cooler lines and it wasn’t flowing as it should. Craig worked out that the only thing that had changed on the car before it came to Tassie was the oil and filter. They worked out that the gauze in the filter was too fine and not letting the pressure and flow through properly. So now there was a mission to get a new filter on the car, Patrick found an “old mate” that had like 20 in his truck and was happy to give us one to use. There is one thing about the Tasmanian people they are more than happy to help you out and so incredibly friendly! So with the filter changed and the oil flowing like it should. Craig was out on the track to do some happy laps. I scored some hot laps and we ventured for the first lap and I was just a little bit scared as the track feels very high speed. You go flying down a straight to the hairpin as it dips down and around to the left then you rocked up pretty much off the clock to a sweeping right hander with bumps!!! Yes Bumps!! Then braking hard for the double apex left corners and back onto the straight past the pits. So once I had done it once and felt the GTR hold I was ok and giggling the rest of the way around the track on my hot laps! So with my awesome ride under my belt I was ready for the competition to start!

With just over 270 cars entered for the event it was going to have so many highs and lows for all involved! The array of cars that enter the event is incredible from your historic’s to your production cars to your highly modified and the highly expensive Lamborghinis and Ferraris. As I was checking out the competition in the Silverdome I bumped into another SSCC member Jeff Byrant from GT Motorsports. He was Service Crewing for Porsche GT2 and was going to hear all about the issues that his car was going to face through out the competition too. Jeff was a great help to Craig and crew throughout the competition and was much appreciated as Jeff is a bit of a Targa Vetran.
I was also going to be using 1-6 notes for the first time as a safety precaution as the zero car only goes at 70% through the course to check the stage after Double Zero and to tell all spectators, officials and competitors that the stage is now live and the first competitor car will be 3 minutes behind us and then all cars after are a 30 second gap.

Targa does a shakedown as the first day which is a town stage 50km outside of Launceston in Georgetown. The town stage is only about 4kms long and all marked out by arrows on boards and tape. You actually go through Georgetown’s main street and it was so fantastic! I was in “Ohhhhh” that they would actually let you do this! The spectators lined the streets and came out from there houses to see the cars fly through. It was a shake down for what was to eventuate and it was feeling awesome!
We lined up at the start tent and it was the first taste that the officials on Targa would get of me. I am now going to tell you how bad my ego can be but I became a bit of a highlight to all helpers involved as I like to make my job fun! I’m very friendly and love to have a laugh so as long as I get a smile off the volunteers that are working with me to make the event happen that’s enough to make my day. So with the jokes aside and double zero happy with the stage they called it code GREEN. Which means we get a start time and line up to go tearing through the stage ourselves. I started the countdown and with 10 seconds to go the emergency orange roof light goes on and the siren goes on. I tell you it feels like your about to chase a criminal 5,4,3,2,1….GO! Darren and I we where off and you could feel the body roll of the standard Mazda through the tight street course with no roll cage or harness mind you! I was bracing myself in the seat and trying to get my head around calling the 1-6 notes as well as checking the stage for anything dangerous. To see if we are happy with the condition of the surface to be dry, intermediate or wet! We are driving through the stage at 70% and just as we go around the tight 3 ½ left. Darren takes the car out wide to see how she handles but didn’t realise the spoon gutter came to an end and we hit the square gutter with the front driver’s wheel. He was quick thinking to stay on the right course and got off the square gutter in time for the sharp 1 ½ right hand turn. We managed to finish the stage and got our finish time. We drove up to a servo out of the way to check the car. We were both hesitate to get out of the car but got out and walked around to see a good size bubble in the tyre and some white scuff marks on the outside tyre wall of how much it had rolled on the sidewall. Must of looked pretty impressive as the phone calls started to come through “who the hell is driving the zero car??”“ He shouldn’t try to be Mark Webber you know!!” ha-ha. We decided it was best to be safe rather than sorry and changed the tyre. It felt good to be on the tools again as I hadn’t done it for a month or so when I last saved a girl on the side of the road. Dads should really teach there daughters to change tyres my mobile “angel” service is only on a part time basis!! haha

It seems we weren’t the only ones to have issues on the shake down stage with Burgess and Bourke having gearbox issues. The gearbox decided to get stuck and didn’t want to select gears correctly. They rolled through the finished line and still got to put down a half decent time even with the issues. They took the GTR back to the Silverdome to work on it and try and get it to select the gears correctly. Spada & Condon went well in the shake down also it was there first Targa and decided to start with RookieRally first so where only tackling the stages for 3 days in the awesome Evo 6. Some might not know the great story of this EVO. It seems to be a little Aussie Battler as last time it was in Tasmania early this year it got stolen from a security guarded yard. It was on a trailer and locked up but the crooks managed to cut through the fence and take the car away without anyone noticing. The only things the crooks didn’t realise were the power and the closeness of the rally community and how fast word travels. It went around like wildfire that the car had been taken and the Tassie guys were on the case. It was found 2 days later just down the road in a street still on the trailer with a tarp over it and not a scratch on it.
Day 1:
It was an early start for us and I was getting used to it as we are the second car on all the stages. I was my usual funny self with finding out and getting introduced to Mike (navigator) & Ed Ordinski Driver of the Double Zero car. This guy is an Australian Rally Champion and I have watched him fly though forest a few times through the years and here he was in front of me. I was a little taken back and started babbling “That’s Ed Ordinski, No way!” I proceed to go up and give him a big cuddle and stated “I’m hugging Ed Ordinski right now” So with the introductions over and my highlight at Targa in my mind we got into the Zero Car to have my first real taste of a Targa stage and I was ready. The drivers all get a start time to be at the start of the stage and have to make there own way with the roadbook. I got to try a different trip meter in the Zero Car and I like it a lot better than the Terratrip. It’s called a Monit and it’s a nice little easy to use unit. It looks a lot more modern than the other styles of trip meters I have seen and used. There is no silly calculation with this device it’s really wire in and away you go! The stages on the first day where all quiet short in the morning and then leading up to the slightly longer ones with Sheffield being the longest and Mersey lee being the one with the most carnage. The wet weather was playing games over Tasmania and was following Darren and myself around all day. The morning stages weren’t to bad a little damp but after we went through it was as if the heavens opened up for the entrants and raining on there parade! The best stage I found was Mersey lee as it had a wooden bridge half way through and even for us in the Mazda was really struggling for traction. It nearly put us into the side of the bridge at one stage and we weren’t the only ones to find this out. There were 6 entrants that made contact with the bridge due to not slowing down enough and 4 of them actually got wedged into the side of it and the tractor needed to pull them out. With all these incidents it holds up the day so there was a huge queue beginning to happen at the start of Mersey lee and Sheffield stages. We had finished the day and was radio to double back to the start of the Sheffield stage to recheck it due to Targa needing to open the road to get a school bus through. It was a bit of an effort to get back to the start of the stage with all the road closures and all we had was a map to work it out. The road book only tells you how to get to one stage to the next and home again. We made it and found out in the end we didn’t need to recheck the stage so I got to see the” starts” at Sheffield. We were at the back of the field with all the fast cars so there were some fantastic starts the Torana and Burgess’s GTR and the Lambo were some of my favourites! The R35 really let the Nissan side down with no launching but they are an automatic after all! Spada & Condon were putting up a great fight for the second day of competition in the Rookie Class and were in the Top 5 fastest times in most stages on the day. Burgess and Bourke were doing great as well with being in the Top 5 of fastest times in every stage of the day in there early modern class.

Day 2:
This day caught me way off guard with the first stage called “The Sideling”. It’s a very technical stage with lots and lots of calls close together. It’s very twisty and given the horrible weather was extremely slippery as well. It looked like going through a rain forest at certain parts and had a wooden bridge in the middle that was a bit tricky to get through with the slippery conditions and then you start heading back up over the hills to the end of the stage. I couldn’t believe that I came off my notes. We weren’t even going that quickly through the stage but I was lost and wasn’t sure where I had gone off. I must of gotten behind in the calling the notes as straight off the line was all 4 left,4 right,4 1/2 left, 4 1/2 right for about 1.5km which is a very busy stage!!I eventually found myself on the notes and got back to calling it right but was a little upset with myself that I was so caught out so quickly and found it tricky to come back on the notes. Was a very big learning curve for me and I need to be fresh and bright eyed for that stage next year! I wasn’t the only one that had trouble on that stage with Craig and Patrick starting off so well in the stage and hoping all the gremlins in the gearbox had been sorted until ¼ way through the stage the gear box broke again and was stuck in a safe position on the stage. They put the triangles out to warn oncoming drivers that the car was stopped on the side and they sat back and watch the rest of the entrants whoosh past them until it was time to pick up the car and get it to a workshop to fix it once again. The rest of the day was getting all the entrants warmed up for the tougher stages in the contest. We were travelling quiet a few kms around Launceston area. The longest stage for the day was Rossarden and was nice sweeping corners sort of stage. Spada & Condon had the best day with being in the top 3 fastest times for almost all the stages in the day in the Rookie Class. We had the day end at Longford another town stage and I found these the most fun with the crowds they draw and the naughty feeling you get by screaming through the streets in your race car!

Day 3:
Were more stages close to Launceston and travelling out to Devonport and then ending back in the Silverdome. We were averaging at least 8 stages through out the days and were now starting to do some of the stages backwards like Mt Roland which is Cethana tomorrow the opposite way. The day started out better as I wasn’t going to get caught off my guard like I did on “The Sideling” one of my least favourite stages at Targa now! I was getting better at my role as navigator in the Zero Car. Darren and I were getting on very well and having a laugh now and again in the car. I was mucking around with the start officials at each stage and making friends. I was a little shaken when I discovered that there are leeches in Tasmania…YES LEECHES! One of the start tent officials had been bitten by one and was bleeding profusely from pulling it off his leg! Glad the medical team where on site to tend to the wound. But due to hearing this horrible gossip and seeing the evidence for myself I invented the “leeches dance” as I wasn’t going to pull my sockets up over my jeans and look that silly. I proceeded to hop around side to side and taking each shoe off the bitumen at a time like a mad woman. Darren said if you’re that worried about it just stay in the car which I did decide to do as much warmer in there. At least it was an entertaining morning, as you would imagine the officials all stick together and as I got to the next stage they wanted to see my leeches dance. They assured me that there were no leeches at that particular stage so I obliged them with my very famous dance that was going around the Targa family like wild fire! Craig and Patrick were back on there game with the gearbox fixed and them in the top 5 times in there early modern class on each stage for the morning. They put down the fastest time for the “Caveside & Quamby Brook” stage for there class as well which was fantastic to see and lifted the spirits of the team since the days leading up to now had been a bit disappointing. The Mt Roland stage was the highlight of the day with an oil spill and fuel spill on the stage about ½ way through and so many of the cars spinning off and other trying to miss them so the stage was downgraded to a drive through which was much to the relief of everyone involved.

Day 4:
This day was sending us out of Launceston to Ulverstone to Strahan with some of the biggest transit stages to get us there. I was getting excited to see more of the Tasmanian countryside and go to the west where they say it has its own set of weather. I found this extremely funny as the Tasmanians like to feel bigger than they are. I was picking on some of there ideals and they weren’t impressed by it at all. Burgess & Bourke were on fire for the first stage “Mole Creek” and put down the fastest time in the early modern class. The tension was going through everyone for the second stage of the day “Cethana” which had the oil spill and fuel spill on it the day before but everyone was assured that the spills had been cleaned up and we saw where they were on the stage when we went through and didn’t move an inch off our path so it was deemed safe. Burgess & Bourke did the 2nd fastest time for this stage also. But on the way to the 3rd stage “Gunns Plains” they had issues…Yet you guessed it!! The gearbox again!! I swear if I found the gremlin I was going to strangle it. The issues really start to take a toll on you when nothing seems to go right and all the preparation that goes into even getting to Targa in the first place! The boys weren’t giving up though and found another friendly workshop just outside of Burnie that had a hoist so they could pull the gearbox out to find out what was wrong with it this time. Darren and I were about to find out we had our own set of problems about to unfold. We got to the start of the 4th stage “Riana” and the Mazda was feeling ok until about ¾ through the stage that the Mazda suddenly lost power. Darren was telling me how it was feeling and we were worried we wouldn’t even be getting to the end. We started to panic a little with the first competitor car is only 3 minutes behind us and we were basically just rolling through the stage. We made it to the end and got our finish time and pulled over just after the finish tent and called in the problem to headquarters. This was going to cause a problem with having no Zero Car for the rest of the 5 stages that were on today heading to Strahan. We managed to get to the lunchbreak stop in Burnie and took it to the Mazda dealership workshop to see if we had blown an intercooler pipe off or try and find something obvious that was wrong. We got her up on the hoist and had a look around but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary that could be wrong. The car was sounding ok and functioning ok but it was just down on power like the turbo had stopped boosting. The afternoon stages were all on the one road heading to Strahan and everyone decided not to risk putting the Mazda through that. We limped the Mazda to Strahan on the service road and Darren and I were throwing ideas around what could be wrong. I had put forward that an actuator could be faulty. We would find out that I was RIGHT! Yes I am going to take that one because I do like to feel a bit clever from time to time. We got into Strahan and Darren dropped me and our stuff off at the cabin to go and find the Mazda Service Crew to confirm what we thought it could be. Strahan is a gorgeous seaside town and was very picturesque and I envied the entrants that were staying in the elegant hotel on top of the cliff they had the best view of the ocean and main street of the little fishing town. I decided to use this time to catch up with friends have a few beers and hear some tall stories of the battles they had on the stages while checking out the cars in the service park. After a few hours had passed and I was full of all the wild stories I set off to find Darren and get the final verdict of what was going to happen to the poor Mazda. The crew had come to the conclusion that the actuator on the fins on the front wheel of the turbo was faulty and not letting the fins move correctly hence the lack of power if the fins where stuck in the wrong position. So that was the end of the mighty Diesel Mazda being the Zero Car. They was a lengthy discussion on who was going to take the place as zero car and crew it now. After another few hours it was decided that Darren would stay with the Mazda and take it to Hobart for the final day. The Public Relations Car and Crew would take over the role as Zero Car for the final day as they had lights, sirens and radio already installed in the Ford Falcon. Burgess & Bourke and Crew made it into Strahan late that evening with the GTR fixed once again and hoping that it would last the final day of competition.

Day5:
I jumped in with Burgess & Bourke’s Crew to help out for the final day of competition as was useless to stay with the Zero Car as Darren was going with the Mazda Service Crew for the day. The last day is tricky for the service crews with a very early start needed to get through the stages before the road closures. There is only one road into Strahan and one road out it seems. If we didn’t make it to the right stage at the right time we would be stuck until all the competition cars had been through. We started working out were it would be best to stop so Craig could refuel if needed. We worked out the best way was to get past the longest stage in Targa “Mt Arrowsmith” with it being 50kms long! We didn’t get to see the “Strahan” stage but Craig found this to be his favourite in the whole competition and the GTR was feeling good at that point with putting the 2nd fastest time down in his class. The next stage was “Queenstown” and it took my breath away it was like the great ocean road. Curling its way around the mountain and the view was outstanding it’s a very tight stage with no room for errors as having cliff on one side and guardrail on the other and Burgess and Bourke were passing slower cars to make up lost ground. Then it was time for “Mt Arrowsmith”. I was wondering how Patrick would go with this stage as I have found over my time being a nav that the longer stages you suffer from fatigue. Mt Arrowsmith stage has long straights and high speed sweeping corners and then tightens up as you go through the different Tasmania terrain. They made it to the end and we were waiting for them. Craig said he could smell gearbox oil at the last part of the stage. Tom looked under the car and told him the bad news” A gear has broken and the teeth have spat out the side of the gearbox and has put a hole in the side of the casing and is leaking oil”. So with that bad news Craig finally gave up and said “That’s it, Were OUT! I can’t do the rest of the stages to Hobart. Would rather save what’s left of the gearbox “All of us were a bit sad at the outcome but at least had gotten to the last day. Targa is definitely an achievement to finish and the rivals in the Porsche that Burgess and Bourke had been battling against in nearly every stage had problems on the last day too with an engine failure. We headed to Hobart with the GTR on the trailer to drop it off so we could attend the after party and see the champions on the podium. We reached it in time to see the winners up on the podium getting there plates and medals and the champagne flowing into the crowd and whoever else was beside them. Was a great sight and I have set myself a goal to at least get up on a podium in my navigating career and get a Targa Medal.
Spada & Condon left the event early in the week after Day 3 but came 2nd in the Rookie Rally!
Burgess’s team learned a lot from the experience and what is need next time they decide to conquer Targa. I found Targa absolutely extraordinary and it really is the thrills and spills in motorsport. I hope they never take this excellent event away from us! I can’t wait to do it all over again and fingers crossed I will be in a competition car next time and I get to experience that side of the event. Stay tuned for more epic adventures from the Tarmac Crew!!
Targa Tasmania Highlights Video 2010