Targa Wrest Point
The team competed in their second Targa Wrest Point event over the weekend. The weather was extremely hot with tempuratures getting up to 34 degrees which made it very warm in confines of the small cabins with necessary flame proof suits, helmets and other safety equipment.
The three cars:
505 Adam Spence and Tracy Button
510 Geoff Kennedy and Kelly Handley
511 Matilda Mravicic and Lee Challoner-Miles
All looked brilliant lined up together at the start of the event. The cars were all being covered by Mazda Australia as part of a new Mazda web site so you will be able to read about that shortly over the coming months. So all the drivers had photos taken and interviewed for the TV.
First stage had the three cars breezed through perfectly. Then onto the 24km Tahune stages which take you up a brilliant piece of road for the morning tea stop, a quick break, about face and then cover the same piece of road in the opposite direction.
All three cars completed these stages in very respectable times with the Spence/Button car and Mravicic/Miles cars sharing fastest times in the stages with both cars being held up in the stages by slower cars. In 511’s instance a Porsche 911.
Another couple of stages and then back to compete up the Tahune airwalk road again, unfortunately it was on this piece of road about 7Km’s into the stage that car 511 left the road after coming in contact with coolant that has been spilt on the road by an earlier vehicle. The car sustained too much damage for the car to be repaired that afternoon so their race was over.
With the relief that the 3rd car’s team were uninjured the other team made solid progress for the remainder of the event with both cars spending a fair amount of time in the air on some of the bumpy roads at the end of Day 1.
Geoff in car 510 was competing in his first tarmac rally so was getting quicker in each stage, helped along by the experience of his co-driver Kelly who has competed in many events previously. The tempuratues pushed to extremely high on the second day and with the Tarmac melting, so were 505’s tyres and the team slowed a little to ensure they finished the event.
Unfortunely the last two stages were cancelled due to accidents occurring in the stages so the event finished a little too prematurely for all.
All in all even through we had one of our cars not finish it was a great performance from the team with car 505 (Adam and Tracey) finishing in equal 59th and car 510 (Geoff and Kelly) in 75th in a field of 160 competitors.
The team also managed to raise some funds for Starlight Childrens Foundation during the event also which was great for those in need.
Geoff/Adam and Tracy will be back for the main event, Targa Tasmania in April in the Starlight Mazda RX7 making its debt so watch this space!