Here comes the tallest guy in the smallest car for the 10th year on the trot.
On Monday Rotorua's lanky Mike Lowe and trusty co-driver Phil Sutton will be taking their 40-year-old Fiat Abarth Berlina Corsa on the road for the 10th annual Dunlop Targa New Zealand Rally.
There are four Rotorua-based crews in the 240-strong rally, with Keith Yeats (1979 BMW 535i), Brian Mannington (1979 Ford Escort) and Andrew Shrimpton (1961 Austin-Healey 3000) driving alongside team ENZED Abarth.
At 195cm tall, Lowe and his little red and white Fiat are quite the contrast. The driver, tall and thin, while the car is short and bubbled. It wouldn't make a Monster Garage television show on looks - it's just not big enough - but pound for pound it packs serious punch, fuelled on aviation gas with a top speed nearing 200km/h.
"We've been clocked at 195km/h but anything above 160km/h is seriously scary," Lowe told The Daily Post.
The 1000cc racer has become a poster car for the event, having finished all of the previous nine events and added itself to the folklore of the rally.
Lowe said the Abarth was the smallest and one of the oldest cars in the race but it was by no means the slowest, to which many a red-faced Porsche driver could attest.
It is one of only two cars, the only historic vehicle, to have started and finished every Targa NZ Rally and there are high hopes that record will continue this year. But it will be a great deal harder.
This year's rally covers 900km with competitors in their cars 12 hours a day as they move from Auckland, then criss-cross between Taranaki and Hawke's Bay before finishing up in Wellington six days later.
With the Fiat being one of the smallest cars in the rally, it had to be driven flat out, which created mechanical pressure on the car and support crew.
The fuel tank holds only 25 litres and with a consumption rate of five kilometres per litre, Lowe's crew of Dave Jowett and Gary Finemore are crucial components, fuelling the car every 100km to keep it on the road.
After 10 years of racing the smallest car you'd think Lowe and his crew would hanker for a bigger, faster and overall more competitive machine but that's not why they race.
"Our main motivation is satisfaction. Having a 40-year-old 1000cc car not only finish the event, but beat home over half the field, catching Porsches and the like on the way, gives everyone involved in our team immense satisfaction," he said.
Lowe revs up for Targa
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.