Targa Blog: Leg 5
With that heading there's no prizes for guessing that team Skoda Carsales has successfully greeted the chequered flag in this year's 19th annual Targa Tasmania.
With a final placing of 21st in the Modern category, our Octavia RS-P was the first front-wheel drive in the class. Over all the various classes that compete in Targa it was the second front-wheeler home -- only the showroom class Mazda3 MPS brilliantly steered by young gun, Brendan Reeves completed Targa's 39 stages faster. In terms of the only two-wheel drives that beat it in Modern, how's this for a list – two Porsche GT3s, the rocketship Skelta special and a Corvette Z06. Not bad for an automatic family wagon, eh!
But as pleased as we were to finish one of the wettest and most treacherous Targas in a decade, reaching Hobart brought with it mixed emotions... Relief because we'd made it in one-piece; a feeling of accomplishment because frankly we achieved more than we set out to and quite some disappointment – because another Targa adventure was over.
After running off the road in wet condition on stage one on day one, I wasn't sure we were going to make it through the five days of Targa unscathed. Indeed, as that first rainy day unfolded both Justin and I were quite apprehensive. We just didn't let each other know and only admitted so later.
Getting to know a new car's habits is hard enough in the dry. In the diabolically wet conditions we were on a hiding to nothing. Thank goodness for the better conditions on Day Two. It's amazing what some confidence can do.
Day five at Targa is a tough day and it brings so many undone. There's no easy stage to start the day and play yourself in. Within 2.9kms of turning the key in Strachan's parc ferme, you're at the start line of a 30km-plus stage that can bite -- hard. Thus when we woke to leaden skies and the promise of significant rain over the day, those nagging feelings from day one resurfaced. The confidence of day four was washed away with dawn's torrential rain.
After a look at overall standings, with long stages to work with if the skies cleared we had a chance of catching the car 30sec or so in front of us. On the other side of the coin, with the next car around 2minutes back we had a buffer we could rely on if the weather didn't improve.
In the end the wet weather set in and after a 'moment' on oil in the early part of the Queenstown stage and absolutely zero grip, yours truly wimped it -- just a touch. We still went at it hard, hunting Porsches, BMWs and all-wheel drives when we could, but there was always a fair bit in reserve.
After queuing in sunshine for around 30 minutes, by the time we started streaming wet conditions greeted us on Australia's longest rally stage -- the 56km Mt Arrowsmith. This is a stunning piece of road that includes long straights, tight switchbacks and some starkly beautiful near-Alpine scenery. Surface changes mean in parts it's grippy, in others almost totally devoid of grip. In the past', the stage has even seen snow hit the Targa field.
Luckily the temperatures weren't quite that low this year but the rain came sure did come down -- in sheets. At one stage co-driver Justin Hunt interrupted his notes, saying simply: "10 Right into Eight left, I can't see Mike". I replied with "It's alright, I can"... I lied.
The rain had stopped by Tarraleah but the road was still very wet and slippery. Our last chance to grab some real time Molesworth was bone dry, but for some reason shortened to around half its of original length. With only Grasstree Hill and a token Hobart stage to complete, the competitive part of Targa was over for another year.
There's little doubt that our Octavia RS-P was the surprise pack of Targa 2010. We grabbed a fair bit of attention with our Prologue stunt and then backed that up with strong performances throughout the event. Rumours were flowing thick and fast by Day Four. We variously heard our Octavia had sprouted an all-wheel drive system and/or a WRC-spec factory engine. We wish!
Nonetheless, in the dry the car was very competitive and both quick and forgiving -- much more so than we anticipated prior to the event. PPE's brains trust made a best guess as suspension settings, ride heights and the like and it was flickable and well balanced from the off. We'll look at upgrading the springs if it competes again, but that's just fine tuning -- the basic package is better than solid.
We'd largely made our peace with the road-biased DSG gearbox by the end of the event. Still, if we get a chance to compete in the car again, we'll be looking at the potential to tweak its software to allow total control of the gearbox as is the case in other twin-clutch set-ups.
In the wet (and dry) the ability to 'short-shift' and still get wide-open throttle settings or hold the engine on redline between corners would be a significant benefit. That said there was something decadent to be able to relax during the non-competitive liaison stages and let the auto mode do its own thing. We'll make sure we retain that.
Suspension tweaks will make the car quicker, but the main add-on we'll need to look at is a limited slip diff. This alone will transform the RS-P from a very, very capable sporting drive to a potential giant-killer.
I'd estimate the conventional open front differential cost us the better part of a second per kilometre -- much more in the really wet conditions. Apply that sort of improvement across Targa's near-500km of competitive stages and the 'little wagon that could' would have finished in around 15th place!
If the Octavia surprised the rest of the field, it also surprised the team that put it together -- the crew at Performance, Parts and Engineering.
It's a testament to PPE's expertise and experience that we struck not a single issue -- amazing given the car was pulled apart and rebuilt in just four weeks and went to Targa without so much as 1km of testing. Everything worked perfectly all Targa -- right down to the iPod jack! (Co-driver Hunt is easily bored between stages and likes to spins the discs.)
PPE's Craig Tulloch lavished attention on the car through Targa and made sure everything worked just so. With the exception of a precautionary suspension and underbody check after I took a big cut on a '7 Right' in the Elephant Pass stage on Leg Two, the extent of the nightly fettling the Octavia needed were precautionary brake bleeds after Day Two and Four.
We'll say our official 'thank-yous' in a separate update, but as far and Craig and PPE (a sister company to Team Mitsubishi Ralliart) goes, we can't sign off without saying again what a fantastic job they did. We can't recommend them highly enough.
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