Record 302 cars in 17th Targa Tasmania
The 17th Targa Tasmania this week looks like being a classic. There are a record 302 cars entered this year -- 26 more than last year, largely because of growth in the number of classic touring cars.
Apart from the Australian entrants, there are competitors from the US, UK, United Arab Emirates, Japan and Hong Kong.
"We're promoting that Targa is a lot more than a car race," event director Mark Perry said.
"It is still predominantly that for many. It is a rally at the end of the day -- that's its heritage. But we are encouraging more of the touring type."
That's well and good, but the public interest will be in the name drivers and cars in contention for outright honors.
Jim Richards is the unquestioned master of Targa Tasmania, having driven an array of two and four-wheel drive Porsches in it over the years. This year Richards and long-time co-driver Barry Oliver are in a new two-wheel drive Porsche 911 GT2 and should be contenders for another victory if conditions are dry throughout the week.
There is a prologue tomorrow (Tuesday) at Georgetown to decide the running order (slowest to fastest) and the rally proper starts from Launceston on Wednesday, with 39 stages over the five days until Sunday's finish in Hobart.
Missing this year is Tony Sullens, who beat Richards last year in a Subaru Impreza WRX STI.
The four-wheel-drive Subarus and Mitsubishi Evo Lancers with several especially talented drivers are likely to be at the pointy end, especially if there is rain anywhere on the course during the week. All eyes will be on South Australian Steve Glenney in an Evo IX Lancer, who dominated February's Rally Tasmania.
Targa is a much longer event, though, and requires delicate treatment of tyres to avoid penalties for changes of rubber.
The top guns in Subarus are likely to be former touring car star Tony Longhurst and gravel rally ace Dean Herridge, fresh from second place in the opening round of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship in New Caledonia.
Ross Dunkerton, now in his 60s but arguably Australia's greatest rally driver before Chris Atkinson's arrival on the world scene in recent years, won Targa's Rookie Rally last year in an Evo IX Lancer and returns this time to contest the Modern Competition.
All of the above are in privately-run cars, but there is considerable manufacturer interest too -- although with cars that won't feature in the battle for outright honors.
Attracting a lot of attention will be the Mazda3 MPSs to be piloted in the new Showroom 2WD category by Scotsman Alister McRae (a former British rally champion, veteran of 75 world rally championship rounds, and younger brother of late world rally champion, Colin McRae) and Rick Bates, who was tenth outright in Targa for Mazda last year.
"The important thing for me to remember is it's an endurance event, so I need to be fast but also make sure the car and the tyres last the distance," said McRae (pictured).
Toyota is fielding two TRD Aurions for the supercharged V6-powered car's first competitive outing. One will be in the hands of triple Australian rally champion Neal Bates (twin brother of Rick) and co-driver Coral Taylor in the Modern Competition class.
Simon Evans, national rally champion the past two years, is running the other in the Showroom 2WD class.
Evans' regular co-driver, wife Sue, will be alongside him on the prologue, but for the rest of the week he will have various celebrity co-drivers.
Targa is a feast for those who love watching great cars in action on open roads and of particular interest will be the new Nissan R35 GT-R driven by Tony Alford with co-driver Karl Farmer, the Toowoomba-built Skelta G-Force of Ray Vandersee that led Targa last year, and the Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera of nephew and uncle combination, and Tasmanian favorites, Jason and John White.
Still on rallying, but of the gravel variety …
Japan's Katsu Taguchi and Australian co-driver Mark Stacey, in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX entered by India's Team MRF, won the first round of the 21st Asia-Pacific Rally Championship in New Caledonia at the weekend.
They finished almost 2 minutes ahead of Australians Dean Herridge and Chris Murphy in a Subaru Impreza WRX STI fielded by Japan's Cusco team.
Fellow Australians Scott Pedder and Glen Weston held second place for much of the event in their debut with MRF in an Evo IX until an off on the long and slippery Katrakoin stage put them out early on the final day.
"I never had a slow accident like this one all my life," Pedder said.
"I was cruising well but got shocker of a corner. I was caught by surprise."
An earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale rocked New Caledonia on the eve of the event.
Another Australian, Bill Hayes, co-drove fourth-placed Frenchman Jean-Louis Leyraud.
The next round of the Asia-Pacific series is the Rally of Canberra on May 9-11, when Australia's APRC champion of the past two years, Cody Crocker, will begin his title defence -- the regulations only require to start six out of seven rounds.
Crocker won't get the latest generation hatchback Impreza from his Singapore-based MotorImages team until the third round -- the Rally of Whangarei in New Zealand in June.
The other rounds are in Japan in mid-July, Indonesia in late August, Malaysia in early October and China in early November.
Bernie up to all his old tricks
Melbourne's Sunday Herald Sun newspaper has reported that, after having said -- little more than a month ago -- that it was Melbourne or nowhere for the Australian Grand Prix, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone is now teasing that Sydney could be an option.
Ecclestone said the Victorian government had not contacted him about retaining the GP beyond the 2010 expiry of its existing contract and the paper said -- in what it claimed was an exclusive interview, although it only published several paragraphs -- he threatened to take the GP elsewhere unless Victorian premier John Brumby could convince him otherwise.
While Ecclestone is a master deal-maker and NSW is establishing a new major events company, our strong information is that the Sydney decision-makers are no more interested in hosting an F1 GP than they are a V8 Supercar round at the Homebush Olympic site.
If timing for the European audience is Ecclestone's main concern about future Australian GPs, perhaps he ought be looking to Perth -- the boom state without a major international motorsport event since giving up Rally Australia.
Webber bullish
With successive finishes behind him now, Australia's F1 driver, Mark Webber, is now more bullish about his Red Bull team's prospects for the rest of the year.
Webber has said in European publication Motorsport Aktuell that Red Bull could get an edge on midfield rivals Williams and Renault now because it has two experienced drivers.
Red Bull is only seventh in the constructors' championship after three rounds, courtesy of Webber's four points from Malaysia and Bahrain, while Williams is fourth and Renault sixth.
But the Aussie said that he and David Coulthard are well equipped to develop the Adrian Newey-designed RB4 as the season progresses.
"We have two drivers -- Williams and Renault have only one (Nico Rosberg and Fernando Alonso respectively)."
He said the rookies in the rival teams, Nelsinho Piquet at Renault and Kazuki Nakajima at Williams, were only "good at times".
F1 street sellout
The new European Grand Prix -- a street race in Valencia, Spain, on August 24 -- is already a sell-out just 10 days after tickets went on sale. All 112,771 tickets, valid for all three days of the event, were snapped up and organisers are now looking at increasing the capacity of the grandstands.
Swiss A1 sealer
The 24-year-old Neel Jani virtually assured Switzerland of the third A1 GP World Cup of Motorsport in Shanghai at the weekend, although an American teenager, Jonathan Summerton, won the feature race. Australia's John Martin qualified 13th for the sprint race and 15th for the feature and finished 15th and 14th in the two races.
Going to the final round at Brands Hatch in Britain on May 4 Switzerland leads New Zealand by 29 points with a maximum 32 still to be won.
Summerton and NZ driver Jonny Reid collided at the start of the sprint, won by Jani, and Summerton needed anti-inflammatory dressing to a sore right hand to make the start of the feature, in which he gave the US its first A1 victory as Reid finished fourth and Jani fifth.
Summerton, from Florida and turning 20 next week, was joined on the podium by Portugal's Filipe Albuquerque, who finished second in the feature for his third podium in only his sixth A1 race.
Ireland's Adam Carroll, buoyed by his maiden A1GP victory at the previous round in Mexico, took third for his third podium of the season.
Canadian Robert Wickens set the fastest lap of the feature after finishing second to Jani in the sprint, in which Albuquerque was third.
Jani has now won four races this season and is eyeing an F1 seat with Force India, hopeful that his Indian roots will help his cause.
A1 GP championship standings with one round remaining: Switzerland 150 points, New Zealand 121, France 111, Great Britain 99, South Africa 92, Germany 83, Ireland 83, Netherlands 80, Canada 75, Portugal 50. Australia is 17th on 20 points.
Indy rolls closer
The 92nd running of the Indianapolis 500 next month has attracted entries for 39 cars -- with 32 drivers nominated so far. And among them are 12 rookies, including Australia's Will Power with KV Racing.
Team Penske has entered its regular 2008 drivers, Brazilian Helio Castroneves and Aussie Ryan Briscoe, as well as a third car without a driver nominated -- raising speculation its former open-wheeler star Sam Hornish Junior, the three-time Indy Racing League champion and 2006 Indy 500 winner now in NASCAR, may front.
Three women are entered - Danica Patrick, Sarah Fisher and Milka Duno.
There are three former Indy 500 winners among the drivers nominated so far - Castroneves (2001-02), Buddy Rice ('04) and Dan Wheldon ('05).
Rookies begin an orientation program at The Brickyard on May 4-5, official practice begins on May 6 and the race is on May 25.
NASCAR eco-run
NASCAR's reigning Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson has won his first race of this season at Phoenix International Raceway ahead of Clint Bowyer in another Chevrolet. Their respective crews kept them out on the track over the final laps as others pitted for fuel and/or tyres.
Johnson is still fourth in this year's standings, behind Jeff Burton (Chevrolet), Kyle Busch (Toyota) and his new Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Junior, who finished seventh at Phoenix.
Sam Hornish Junior in a Penske Dodge was the top rookie in 20th while reigning Indianapolis 500 winner and last year's Indy Racing League champion Dario Franchitti made the race in his Ganassi Dodge this time and finished 32nd.
The next Sprint Cup round is in two weeks at Talladega Speedway, allowing Robby Gordon to skip off this week for the six-day Central Europe Rally through Hungary and Romania, which is replacing the Dakar Rally that was cancelled in January because of terrorism fears.
Australia's Marcos Ambrose finished 17th in NASCAR's second tier Nationwide Series round at Phoenix, after qualifying 11th.
Ambrose is 17th in the Nationwide points while his teammate, Kelly Bires, is 10th.
Kyle Busch won the Phoenix Nationwide race ahead of Carl Edwards and Denny Hamlin.
While the Sprint Cup takes a break this week, the secondary series now heads to a road course round in Mexico City this weekend which should suit Ambrose better.
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