It will be an old-fashioned, head-to-head, grudge match, as Subaru takes on Mitsubishi in a battle of the Japanese giants.
“It’s going to be great fun, both for us and the crowd”, commented Dean. “These cars, the Subaru WRX STi and the Mitsubishi EVO, have dominated the World Rally Championship and regional rally championships for much of the past 15 years. It will be great to see them going one-on-one again. Both marques have a large following, here in Australia and right around the world. So expect to the crowd to getting involved.”
Along with the ‘Rally Explosion’, the Festival of Speed will also feature hot laps by Mark Webber in his Red Bull F1 car, Dean Fiore in his Triple-F V8 Supercar, V8 touring cars from the 1970s, Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette and Cobra supercars, current and vintage motorbike, Truck racing and even an Eagles vs Dockers race.
For full details, go to www.festivalofspeed.com.au.
Photos courtesy of Levi Buzolic – loudphotos.com, and angrymanphotography.com.au.
With only five seconds splitting them at the start of the day, and the pair traded times during the morning and afternoon stages. And although Liddle managed to come within three seconds of the Maximum Motorsport boss, Rob was able to extend that margin over the first two of three passes of the super special stage and take fifth place by seven seconds.
Behind them Graham Furness held on to 10th place, a position that didn’t really reflect the pace he showed across all three days of the event. A miscalculation during day one meant he incurred a 70 second time penalty, causing him to drop seven places to 14th.
After finishing leg 1 in 14th place, Furness quickly began to pick up positions, and completed Saturdays stages 9th, 43 seconds behind 8th-placed Jon-Paul Van Loenhout.
But Bryan McGrath has a real fight on his hands, in a four-way battle for 10th place with Rohan Green, Kym Illman and Michael Steele, just 10 seconds covering four positions.
“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.”
“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.”
“We had a great time at Targa West last year”, said Maximum partner Dean Herridge. “It’s our local tarmac event, but last year was the first time I was able to compete in it, and a second-place result was pretty pleasing.”
Plus we’re running cars for Graham Furness and Brian McGrath. So even though I won’t be driving in the event, there’ll be plenty of Maximum entries ‘flying the flag’ for Subaru.”
In some ways it’s similar in format to Targa Wrest Point, I can’t wait to see if it and I think it will be an event that suits our Subaru WRX STi.”
Along with his tarmac rally commitments, there’s a possibility Dean will return to gravel rallying later this year. “I’ve been talking to one of the leading teams in the Malaysian Rally Championship. We are hoping that I’ll be able to going up there for the final two rounds of the national series in October and December. It’s still early days, but it would be great to get back onto gravel, and in a series I’ve never contested.”
Both days were challenging. Saturday was longest day of the event, and included a series of 30+ kilometre stages, just to test the already weary crews and support teams. But overnight rain caused competitors plenty of problems on Sunday mornings tricky mountain stages, with several teams crashing out in the final few stages.
“I was a little disappointed on Saturday morning. I’d hoped to make up some more time, but it was a bit of a struggle for the first couple of stages. The roads were still pretty greasy and cold. But once it started to dry out, we started to set some reasonable times. And we made some good in-roads during Sunday morning”.
Of the other Maximum crews, Graham ‘Indiana’ Iddles also struggled on leg 4, but completed Sunday for his best ever Targa Tasmania result. “I really had no rhythm on Saturday. The conditions were pretty tricky, and we made up some positions. We had a spin last year coming into Strahan, so I was a bit tentative. But we’ve improved our stage times this year, so I’m pretty happy with what we’ve managed to achieve”.
Likewise Graham Furness was pleased with his result. “It’s been a good event for us”, said Graham, who shares his car with son Cameron. “We finished 19th outright, and we’re now regularly setting top-20 stage times. That’s what I set out to achieve, which is really pleasing. The only problem I has was that I cut a corner on the Mt Black stage and dented a rim. So we changed two tyres for the final day, but that’s all. The car has been great all event. We had a sticking clutch on Friday, but that was the only problem we’ve had with the car”.
After the drama of a puncture during yesterday’s first stage, Dean Herridge was looking forward to a trouble-free run. And that’s exactly what happened, the #993 Subaru WRX STi moving up the placings as the day progressed.
For the previous three days, Graham Furness has swapped times with the Subaru Impreza of Paul Thomas. And it was a battle that continued today. “We’re having our own private race! Last night we were equal 22nd, but today he snuck ahead by a second. Our aim was to get into top 20 (stage times), and we’ve done that now. So we’ll start again tomorrow and see if we can take back a second or two”.
After surviving the wild weather of Leg 1, Dean Herridge started Thursday’s ‘North-East Loop’ in equal fifth place. But his day got off on a wrong note, thanks to a stray rock. Dean explained, “The road was still fairly damp in patches, and we weren’t trying push too hard on cold tyres. But that stage (Sideling) is littered with sharp rocks on the edge of the road, and we had the misfortune to run over one early into the stage. We struggled on as best we could, but the tyre was deflating and eventually disintegrated”.
But it was not all bad news, with both Graham Furness and Graham Iddles moving up the leaderboard. “I really enjoyed today”, Graham Furness commented after the final stage. “The twisty sections really seem to suit me. I managed to get into a flow early, and the car handled superbly. The biggest difference from last year is that Cameron and I are starting to work much better together in the car. We’ve made a big improvement the year. It was Cameron’s first Targa last year, and today that experience really started to show. I think we’ve gained around two seconds per kilometre, which is a huge step forward”.
And that caused all sorts of problems for crews, with a number of accidents in the treacherous conditions.
Like Dean, both Graham Furness and Graham Iddles found the conditions testing, but drivers put in solid results to sit 24th and 32nd respectively. “It was a day to be sensible”, Iddles explained. “It would have been easy to loose the car today. There were some sections where the rain was really heavy. So we had to play it safe, slow down, and get to the end of the stages. Which is easier said than done!”