Targa Rally: Websters win class in wife's old BMW

Robert Webster (left) and son Nick head to the start line for Saturday's final day in the Targa Rally. Photo / Warren Buckland

When it comes to motorsport it's hard to beat familiarity and experience.

Those factors were among the keys to the Hawke's Bay father-and-son crew of Robert and Nick Webster winning their two-wheel-drive up to three-litre class and finishing fourth overall in the two-day segment of the Targa New Zealand Rally which finished in Palmerston North on Saturday.

The pair, who raced a BMW Mini which used to be Robert's wife Judy's shopping car, were competing in their eighth Targa and maintained their 100 per cent completion rate.

"We didn't put a scratch on the car and all we had to do was pour petrol into it," Nick explained as he reflected on another successful campaign.

Sixty crews tackled the event which was held in conjunction with the 21st annual six-day Targa New Zealand Rally.

"On most of the stages we were finishing between 20th and 25th overall counting the cars in the six-dayer. Our best stage finish was a 15th overall, that was the second time out on the Kahuranaki stage and the home advantage came in," Nick recalled.

The Websters intend to tackle the six-day event next year. The other Hawke's Bay crew in action at the weekend, Stewart Taylor and Nick Allan, had to withdraw on the third of 14 stages.

One of the Drivetrain rubber joints on the Audi S3 they were racing in the modern four wheel drive class broke when they were running second in the class.

"We couldn't find the problem when we noticed something was wrong on stage two. We parked up on stage three outside the Patangata Tavern ... we thought that would be a good place to wait for our crew," Taylor quipped.

It was the first time the Audi had been raced in 10 years. On November 14 and 15 Taylor, in his regular rally car a Mitsubishi Evo 10 and with regular co-driver Warwick Searle of Auckland, will attempt to retain his Hawke's Bay Rally title.

Glenn Inkster and co-driver Spencer Winn successfully ticked off a 2015 trifecta by taking out the six-day section of the Targa New Zealand tarmac motor rally for a second consecutive year in a Mitsubishi Evo 8. The pair finished with a nine-and-a-half minute lead over five-time former winner Tony Quinn and his co-driver Naomi Tillett in a Nissan GT-R35 and almost 20 minutes ahead of third-placed 2013 event winner Martin Dippie and Jona Grant in Dippie's Porsche 911 GT3.

Last year was the first that Inkster and Winn won the main Targa event but it was in the absence of Quinn and Tillett who had crashed out on the second day and re-joined later down the order. Inkster and Winn had also had problems at one of the two smaller Targa events last year.

Because of that Inkster said that this year he and Winn decided to not only win the main event for a second time but also to be the first pair in a number of years to win it as well as the earlier one-day Metalman Sprint and three-day Targa Bambina events.

"And that's what we've done and I couldn't be happier," the Patumahoe driver said as he and Winn celebrated with their crew in front of a large crowd of spectators in The Square in Palmerston North on Saturday afternoon.

This year's six-day event covered a record 1035.5km of closed special stages and 1431.7km of touring stages from Auckland on Labour Monday via Hamilton, New Plymouth, Havelock North and Palmerston North.

Inkster and Winn were never headed, leading both the Andrew Simms Allcomers 4WD class and overall classification from the start.