TASSIE TIGERS
Toowoomba duo takes out Targa event in 1941 GMC
TOOWOOMBA rally drivers Graham Copeland and Josh Herbert took on the rest of the country in the Targa Tasmania rally and six days and more than 2000km later took out the classic category of the prestigious event.
Such a pounding does their 1941 GMC Jimmy Special cop in competition that the vehicle has since been stripped back for repairs at their workshop at Enegen Field Solutions in Drayton.
FOR Toowoomba Targa rally drivers Graham Copeland and Josh Herbert, it’s all about trust.
Mr Copeland drives the duo’s 1941 GMC Jimmy Special while Mr Herbert sits beside him navigating the course.
“If he screws up we end up in the timber,” Mr Copeland quipped about his co-driver.
“Whatever he tells me to do that’s what I do. Fortunately, we trust each other.”
Mr Herbert chimed in with: “We have no other choice.”
And there’s no GPS navigation system in the car to help guide them.
“A lot of places don’t have mobile coverage so Google maps is useless to us,” Mr Herbert said.
Navigators are handed the road maps just prior to racing so Mr Herbert has to be able to study the maps and call out directions to Mr Copeland behind the wheel.
The courses are changed by about 10% from year to year, keeping navigators and drivers on their toes.
That trust must be working because the pair has just returned from Tasmania where they won the classic section of Targa Tasmania, one of Australia’s foremost rally competitions.
Targa Tasmania is contested over six days of competition involving a total of 260 cars with 40 vehicles in the classic section contested by Mr Copeland and Mr Herbert.
“We built it,” Mr Copeland said of the rally car which sits on a hoist in the workshop of their Enegen Field Solutions in Drayton.
“I pretty much wreck it in competition and it gets rebuilt between rallies. The motor is out of a 1941 army truck, it’s bloody tough.
“It’s a six cylinder but on day three we lost one so we were driving on five cylinders and we ended up on four cylinders by the end, but we survived.
“We started in Launceston and go through Strahan and finish in Hobart so we basically cover the whole state.”
The Targa series is contested over four events and Mr Copeland and Mr Herbert have completed two events — the Targa North West and Targa Tasmania. The duo will head to Cairns in August for Targa Barrier Reef and conclude the series with Targar High Country at Mt Buller in Victoria.