BIG PLANS FOR 25 TH ANNIVERSARY TARGA

It’s been a big year for New Zealand marathon motor sport event organizer Ultimate Rally Group (URG). But you won’t find company CEO and Targa / Silver Fern Rally event director Peter Martin taking a break any time soon.

“It’s just the name of the game,” Martin said on Monday. “We’re getting more and more interest in our events from overseas, particularly for a pre-eminent marathon like the Silver Fern.” He went on to say, “It’s important too, with our two Targa products, that people here know in advance when they are and where they start and finish. Hence our decision to lock in our dates as early as we could for 2019.”

Martin plans to celebrate 2019 and the 25th annual Targa New Zealand event in style, with a number of initiatives aimed at seeing the entries top the 200 mark.

The year will start with a three-day Rotorua– Havelock North rally — provisionally named ‘Targa Rotorua/hawke’s Bay’ — in May. Documentation will be held in Rotorua on Thursday, 16 May followed by three full days of competition covering more than 480km of closed special stages and 700km of touring from Friday, 17 May to Sunday, 19 May.

This will be the taster for the full fiveday 25th anniversary Targa New Zealand event, which is set to run from Taupo to Palmerston North between Tuesday, 29 October and Saturday, 2 November 2019.

As part of the 25th anniversary celebrations, the organizers will be holding the Legends Dinner in Taupo on Labour Day, the eve of the event. Following the rally, on Saturday, 2 November, there will be a gala prize-giving function in Palmerston North.

Having successfully run the new time trial as part of the 2018 Targa South Island event in association with the Vintage Car Club of New Zealand, Martin is now opening up that option to all comers in both 2019 events.

“Everyone involved loved the time trial we ran this year, so we have decided to open up the concept for both events this year,” he said. “We will still, obviously, be working with the Vintage Car Club of New Zealand so that those with older cars can join in the fun, but we are also welcoming anyone who likes the specific challenge of driving to an average speed, rather than flat-out.”

That means there’s less compliance costs and the event is opened up to more people, something that Martin says is key to its longterm viability. As long as entrants have a car with a rego and WOF, all they need to do is organize a co-driver; pay the entry fee; and, in the case of the Rotorua / Hawke’s Bay event, take a couple of days of annual leave. “If that isn’t an incentive to finally turn their dream of doing the event into reality, I don’t know what is,” said Martin.

For more information, go to targa.co.nz or check out the Targa NZ page on Facebook.