“We were on fire early on”, exclaimed Rob at the end of day service stop. “Pre-event we were aiming to finish in the top five. I’ve not been in a rally car since last years Targa West, so I’m a little rusty. We were certainly not expecting to be 5th at this stage. But the car has been great, and we found ourselves in 3rd place during the morning.”

The two-time Australian rally champion stepped in to lead the trio of Maximum Motorsport Subarus, when regular driver Dean Herridge was forced to withdraw due to a busy schedule of promotional commitments with Subaru Australia. And with Dean watching from the sidelines, Rob was more than happy to step into Dean’s 2008 Subaru WRX STi. “Compared to the previous generation WRX STi which I drove last year, this car just has more of everything. It’s more predictable, more stable, it’s easier to drive. There’s a huge difference in the braking. At the moment brakes are a lot better than the driver! I’m not really getting the most out of them right now.”

“We dropped a couple of places in the afternoon. There was no problem in the car, it was just that everyone else was attacking. We had a little hiccup with our timing on one of the stages. You can’t exceed a set average speed, and we were a bit too cautious. I think we gave away three seconds, but at least we avoided a larger penalty.”

Along with Rob, Graham Furness and Bryan McGrath both completed the first day without incident and are split by just three seconds.

Tomorrow the crews head north of Perth, with stages run near the towns of Toodyay in the morning and Bullsbrook in the afternoon.

Quit Targa West – Leg 1 Results

1. Peter Major, Nissan GTR, 35:36.0
2. Jim Richards, Porsche GT2, +41.0
3. Peter Rullo, Nissan GTR, +50.0
4. Ross Hamilton, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8, +1:09.0
5. Rob Herridge, Subaru Impreza WRX Sti, +1:14.0
13. Bryan McGrath, Subaru Impreza WRX Sti, +2:39.0
14. Graham Furness, Subaru Impreza WRX Spec C, +2:42.0

Photos courtesy of Peter Evans – peterevans.smugmug.com