Posted By: Scuderia
Targa High Country - 13/11/2013 20:19
Good Stuff Ian and Lindsey!
Thought I'd send out some details on our Targa experience plus a few pics. We arrived at Mt Buller on Wedn arvo, washed the car & finished fitting the RallySafe kit before going to documentaton & scrutineering on Thurs. RallySafe is GPS based tracking system they use to monitor all cars in the event & compute stage times. Thursday afternoon saw us ready to go and with the stickers fitted, the Coupe looked the part anyway.
First taste of action was the prologue on Frid afternoon, I almost missed our start time because it's done on the RallySafe now, not the start official counting down in time honoured manner but Lindsey was on the ball & screamed "GO!". Once underway it was a real buzz to be driving flat out on empty streets using all the road & we finished with big grins & lined up with the rest of the field for Targafest - see first pic. This is when it started to sink in that the rest of the Regularity field were in serious machines; R spec tyres all round, some stripped out with full rollcages - maybe I'd underestimated the level of competition here.
Day 1 started wet after overnight showers so we decided to take it easy on the first stage - no point in ending up in the scenery plus the wet road should suit our regular Pirelli road tyres more than the rally car competition. Yeah, right! When we checked the results that night we were the slowest on Stage 1 by a mile, these guys didn't just look serious, they were serious. We managed to get close to the nominated speed on a couple of stages by driving the doors off the Coupe but it was obvious we were completely outclassed.
Day 2 was going to be worse as the stages were a lot tighter & speeds higher. So the goal was to finish the event with the car intact & have as much fun as possible along the way - which we managed to do.
We had a great time, made some new friends as everyone was very welcoming - probably because they realised we weren't a threat. The event is well run, Sat lunch was very nice at Pizzini Wines, see pic 2, the ice covering the cars Sund morning not so - pic 3. We are now enjoying a casual tour around country Vic on our way home, visiting all those places we flash past on the ICT every year. Our thanks to Marty, Warren, David & Ross for helping get us here - we'll catch up soon & bore you with pictures and videos..
Thought I'd send out some details on our Targa experience plus a few pics. We arrived at Mt Buller on Wedn arvo, washed the car & finished fitting the RallySafe kit before going to documentaton & scrutineering on Thurs. RallySafe is GPS based tracking system they use to monitor all cars in the event & compute stage times. Thursday afternoon saw us ready to go and with the stickers fitted, the Coupe looked the part anyway.
First taste of action was the prologue on Frid afternoon, I almost missed our start time because it's done on the RallySafe now, not the start official counting down in time honoured manner but Lindsey was on the ball & screamed "GO!". Once underway it was a real buzz to be driving flat out on empty streets using all the road & we finished with big grins & lined up with the rest of the field for Targafest - see first pic. This is when it started to sink in that the rest of the Regularity field were in serious machines; R spec tyres all round, some stripped out with full rollcages - maybe I'd underestimated the level of competition here.
Day 1 started wet after overnight showers so we decided to take it easy on the first stage - no point in ending up in the scenery plus the wet road should suit our regular Pirelli road tyres more than the rally car competition. Yeah, right! When we checked the results that night we were the slowest on Stage 1 by a mile, these guys didn't just look serious, they were serious. We managed to get close to the nominated speed on a couple of stages by driving the doors off the Coupe but it was obvious we were completely outclassed.
Day 2 was going to be worse as the stages were a lot tighter & speeds higher. So the goal was to finish the event with the car intact & have as much fun as possible along the way - which we managed to do.
We had a great time, made some new friends as everyone was very welcoming - probably because they realised we weren't a threat. The event is well run, Sat lunch was very nice at Pizzini Wines, see pic 2, the ice covering the cars Sund morning not so - pic 3. We are now enjoying a casual tour around country Vic on our way home, visiting all those places we flash past on the ICT every year. Our thanks to Marty, Warren, David & Ross for helping get us here - we'll catch up soon & bore you with pictures and videos..