Targa on track
Day one of the Targa NZ Rally hit the road in Southland yesterday. Murray and Kenn Hawkes, both of Methven, entered their 1929 Rolls-Royce Phantom in the vintage car section of the rally.
No power steering. No airconditioning. In fact, no mod cons at all.
They might not have the bells and whistles of the modern cars, but Brandan O’Callahan and codriver Hamish Richardson are having a ball racing a 1973 Valiant VJ Charger on the back roads of Southland in the Targa NZ Rally.
‘‘It’s a hell of a handful. You could say we definitely like to feel the car as we’re driving it,’’ O’Callahan said.
The pair had already had a near miss during the five-day rally from Invercargill to Dunedin and then to Queenstown, failing to take a sharp bend on the Mataura Island stage yesterday morning near Gore, slamming on the brakes and hitting reverse to get back on the track.
‘‘That’s how we warm up the tyres,’’ O’Callahan, of Queenstown, joked at the lunch break at the Gore A & P Showgrounds.
The Charger’s 400-plus horsepower comes from a 265 Hemi engine – and it tapped out at 202kmh yesterday morning.
‘‘It’s early in the week and it’s a marathon five days so we don’t want to get too loose too early.’’
However, getting loose was Ford Escort driver Peter Jones, of Nelson, who ‘‘came in too hot’’ on the same corner and hit a power pole on Wyndham-Letterbox Rd.
Also having a few mechanical issues was local favourite Derek Ayson, whose team scrambled to fix a squeaking fanbelt in his 2.4 litre Holbay-Ford-powered Mk 11 Escort during a service stop.
‘‘It’s come a bit loose and broken a bracket off the block so we’re going to try and have to weld the block or try and get the bolt out of it somehow. It’s not ideal but we’ll just see what we can do.’’
Ayson, a 2016 Silver Fern marathon gravel rally winner, is contesting the H W Richardson Classic 2WD class and was in second place after the first three stages. ‘‘It’s a bit different to racing on gravel, you don’t have to turn the steering wheel as far. The guy that’s leading is very fast so if we can stay second for the week we’ll be stoked.’’
In the outright lead were Haydn McKenzie and Matt Sayers, of Auckland, in their Mitsubishi Evo 10.
McKenzie said it was their first event in their production four-wheel-drive and by the lunch stop in Gore he had a 16 second lead. ‘‘I think we can go a wee bit quicker but it’s important we just ease into it, keep it on the black stuff and have some fun.’’
Special Stage 3, the Maitland/ Chatton stage, was downgraded to a touring stage because of safety concerns. However, Targa NZ media relations manager Paul Shanahan said conditions were perfect for racing. ‘‘The weather is perfect, the roads are dry and in good condition, the drivers are enjoying it that’s for sure.’’
There are 64 cars in the competitive stages, 44 in the tour section and 22 in the vintage.
Four-time Targa New Zealand winners Glenn Inkster and Spencer Winn (Mitsubishi Evo 8) from Auckland are favourites to win the rally.
The Targa Tour section, which isn’t timed, has attracted 13 Porsches, several Aston Martins and one of the very few Italo-US 1966 Iso Grifo V8 sports coupes still in use anywhere in the world.
On Saturday, WRC driver Hayden Paddon will join the field for a run over the Crown Range stage in his 2018 New Zealand Rally Championship-winning Hyundai i20 AP4+.