Today the crews rallied on stages to the north-west of Launceston, including the long and tricky Mt Roland and Paloona stages. And the day again provided plenty of drama. The series defending champion Jason White decided to continue, even though the 20 minute plenty he incurred yesterday effectively ended any chance of winning the event. But while one Lamborghini continued, another retired. Kevin Weeks was still in the hunt for victory when gearbox failure forced his retirement.
That leaves Tony Quinn in the lead with a comfortable margin. But behind him there is a great battle brewing between Matt Close in the Audi TTRS and Dean Herridge in the Maximum Motorsport Subaru WRX STI.
With Jason White still 18 minutes off the lead, the series title looks to be a fight between Herridge (currently on 420 points) and Close (400 points). At the end of the days seven stages, Close managed to jump up to second outright and 27 seconds clear of fourth-placed Herridge.
But tomorrow is the start of the critical final two days of Targa Tasmania. The teams will pack up and travel from Launceston to Strahan on the west coast, and then head east on Sunday to the finish line in Hobart. The final two days feature the long and testing Hellyer Gorge and Queenstown stages, and with rain predicated there is every chance the leaderboard will be rearranged.
Targa Tasmania 2011 – Leg 3 Results (Unofficial)
1. Quinn/Tillet, Nissan GT-R
2. Close/Close, Audi TTRS, +2.01
3. Sims/Sims, Nissan GT-R, +2.09
4. Herridge/Searcy, Subaru WRX STI, +2.28
5. Evan/Feaver, Lancer EVO X, +3.51
27. Iddles/Cary, Subaru WRX STI, +13.02
Photos courtesy of Angryman Photography.
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White ran over a rock on The Sideling stage this morning which extensive damage to the underside of his Lamborghini Gallado. He subsequently incurred a 20 minute penalty when he ran out of ‘late time’ while make running repairs to the car.
For Dean Herridge and the Maximum Motorsport Subaru, it’s been another ‘clean’ day of rallying. “We’ve had no issues in the morning stages. We did lose 4th gear on ‘Elephant Pass’, so we just slowed for ‘Rossarden’ and ‘Longford’. The boys have replaced the ‘box’ now, and apart from that the car has been perfect. If we can keep this up we’ll be well placed to challenge the cars ahead of us on the final two days.”
Likewise, Graham Iddles has continued his good form. The undefeated ‘Longford Challenge’ champion notched up another victory on the narrow Longford streets. Battling the flu, Graham climbed two positions today to sit 29th outright. “It was a good day today. We’re just trying to be consistent, not trying to drive beyond ourselves, and that strategy seems to be working well.”
“We’ve had an untroubled run today”, commented Dean. “We’re not too far from the lead and we’re not asking a lot of the car at the moment, so I’m pretty happy.”
“I was really happy with our effort today. It was a really consistent performance today, and that’s what I’m trying to achieve. We’re trying to complete each stage as cleanly as possible, keep the car straight, and make sure we’re in good shape for the rest of the event.”
“We were fourth fastest, which is around where we want to be. The Prologue results sets the starting order for tomorrow, which means we will be around the crews that we need to be keeping an eye on. There’s a bit of an advantage by not being the right at the back. Both of our Maximum Motorsport Subarus WRX STIs completed the stage without a problem. The real stages start tomorrow and there’s a few twisty and technical stages, which tend to suit our Subarus. We’d probably be happier if we had a bit of rain. The dry conditions will probably suit the larger cars a bit more than us. But there’s five days of rallying to complete, and there’s rain predicated for the weekend. This is an endurance event. You need a car that’s both quick and reliable, and that’s been one of the hallmarks of our cars.”
Along with Dean and Ben, Maximum Motorsport regular Graham Iddles and Shane Cary return for their fourth Targa Tasmania. “Unlike Dean, I’m pretty happy to have dry weather! Last year was really tricky in the rain, and the dry conditions suit me personally. We always say our goal is to make it to the finish, and that target hasn’t changed. Shane and I have been improving as a team every year, and we’re looking to improve again this time.”
“Targa is now our biggest event of the season”, commented Dean Herridge. “There’s a huge amount of effort put into, not just the preparation of the cars, but also the logistics and planning. We’ve got plenty of experience with now, but there’s always something the pops up to provide a bit of a challenge.”
“We’re not running as many cars this year and, as a team, we’ve only got two cars to think about. That gives us more time to focus on the job at hand, and with it being the 20th anniversary of the event, I’m really determined to challenge the Lamboghinis, Porsches and GTRs. We always compete to win, and we always put in 110%. But this year we’ll go even harder, try and put as much pressure on the larger cars, and hopefully come away with a good result.”
Maximum’s own Graham Iddles will be completing in the 
So how is riding a bike preparation for Targa? “It’s pretty good preparation”, says Graham. “Riding four to five hours each day gives me the chance to clear my head and there’s plenty of time to think about driving the car. Targa Tasmania is an endurance event, so I should be pretty well prepared from that perspective. I get a lot of fun out of competing in the event and a lot of personal satisfaction being a part of the charity event and putting back into the community. Kids are our future so it is imperative that we all do as much as we can to assist them – particularly those that are having a tough time coping.”
The race began well, with John O’Dowd starting in the car and settings good times during the opening 50 minutes. But ten minutes before the first scheduled pit stop, the engine in #3 Subaru WRX STI started to ‘cough’ on certain corners. “To be honest, we’re still not identified the actual fault”, lead driver Dean Herridge commented at the end of busy race day. “We made a number of changes to the car, from our normal tarmac rally car setup, and one of those changes was fitting a new bagged fuel cell. It not only gives us greater range, but also helps with maintaining a reliable fuel supply when the car is cornering under load. But it looks like there is a fault within the fuel cell, and this caused the engine to ‘cough’ at various parts of the track.”
The team immediately began working to resolve the problem, with Dean driving seven or eight test stints in a search for an answer. “We thought we’d found the solution, and around the six hour mark I put in 22 or 23 laps and the car run perfectly. So I brought it back in and passed over the Angus Kennard for his first stint. But within a few laps the problem was back! In the end we rigged up a system that by-passed bag system and that worked well, although we could only run for six laps before needing to refuel. We should have won the ‘Most Use of the Pit Lane’ award!”
