GILL AND SUMMERFIELD DOMINATE TARGA ROTORUA
After leading the event for most of the first day of competition on Saturday, Auckland tarmac rally specialist Jason Gill and new co-driver Nicole Summerfield from Christchurch (VW Polo R 4WD) went on to win this year’s first Targa event — the two-day Targa Rotorua — on Sunday.
The pair won six of the day’s eight stages to extend their overnight lead from just 16.9 seconds over Subaru Impreza STI pair Cameron Ross and co-driver Matthew Buer to more than three minutes over Dunedin duo Martin Dippie and Jona Grant. They were driving the first of the 2WD cars entered, Dippie’s late-model Porsche 991 GT3 RS.
After taking the lead in the event early on Saturday Ross and Buer held on to their hard-won second place until the final stage — the 12.37km Maungatautari, west of Tirau, on Sunday. In a particularly cruel twist of fate they were forced to limp through most of the stage when a wheel bearing collapsed, bleeding time all the way.
Having already been handed a time penalty of 1min 30s for breaking out of
their average speed ‘bubble’ through the penultimate Hobbiton stage between Buckland and Cambridge the writing was definitely on the wall for the pair. But because Dippie and Grant were carrying a 1 min 30s time penalty of their own for exceeding a stage’s ultimate speed earlier in the day, Ross and Buer had entered the stage still just over 23 seconds ahead — and still in second place — with Dippie and Grant third, and fellow Subaru Impreza STI pair Rory Callaway and his co-driver Samantha Grey fourth.
In what must have been a heart-breaking final few kilometres Ross and Buer lost almost two minutes — 1min 53s to be exact — on the stage to overall event winners Gill and Summerfield, meaning that they not only lost second place to Dippie and Grant but also third to the similar Subaru Impreza STI of Calloway and Grey.
In the nick of time
Scoring fourth place — which is where Ross and Buer washed up in the final reckoning — is still nothing to be sniffed at with a crippled car, particularly given just how stiff the competition was for a spot in the top 10 on each and every stage.
As it was they were lucky that the timing clock stopped where it did as former New Zealand gravel rally champion Bruce Herbert and his co-driver Bevan Parker (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X) finished fifth, just 1.8 seconds behind.
The shock early withdrawal of multitime former event winner and favourite Leigh Hopper and co-driver Michael Goudie (Subaru Impreza WRX) just 5km into the first stage changed the complexion of the event but not the intensity.
Particularly impressive were some of the individual efforts from the likes of Hamilton businessman Mike Tubbs and his co-driver Brook Walden in Tubbs’ 2WD BMW M2.
The pair ended up in sixth place overall after some frankly remarkable times — fourth quickest, each time to boot, through the repeated Waotu stage, then fifth quickest through both the Richmond Road and Hobbiton stages on Sunday afternoon.
Another driver to impress with his relentless pace was Andrew Oakley from Christchurch in his 4WD Audi RS5. He and co-driver Steve Hutchins ended up fourth quickest themselves through the Aotearoa stage just before the lunch break at Cambridge on Sunday. Time-wise Oakley was just 1.2 seconds slower than the winner of the stage, Martin Dippie, and only 0.3 of a second slower than eventual overall winner Jason Gill.
With something of a changing of the guard among the owners and drivers of Classic 2WD cars, the first ‘classic’ car home at Rotorua was the Class 3–winning BMW E30 335i of Nigel Patterson and Warren Glassford in 14th place overall. Next classic home was the Class 2 Mercedes-benz 190 2.3-16 of Mark Mccaughan and co-driver Lindsay Lyons but they were back in 20th spot, while the first Class 1 Classic home was the Mk1 Ford Escort of Steven and Sean Blackley back in 29th place.
With another successful Targa Rotorua event run and won the focus of the Kiwi Targa world now turns to the five-day Targa New Zealand event which this year will be run in the Central North Island over 26–30 October.