Motorsport: Two days in, Targa scrap heats up

Vincent Bristow and Jeff Ashfield are on a flyer in the Classic class. Photo / Ground-Sky

Taranaki pair Glenn Smith and Andy Lowe joined the battle for the lead of the Instra.com Modern category of this year's Targa New Zealand tarmac motor rally on the second of five days of competition in Northland today.

On the 17th annual event's first day on Tuesday, defending Targa Modern title-holder and two-time event winner, Gold Coast, Queensland-based Scot Tony Quinn and co-driver Naomi Tillett swapped stage wins with local rally ace Glenn Inkster and his co-driver Spencer Winn.

Quinn and Tillett continue to lead the event from Inkster and Winn after six more stages in and around Whangarei today but Smith and Lowe certainly made their presence felt, winning the first and fifth stages outright and finishing no lower than fourth in the other four.

Heading into the final publicity stage at Springhill Farm just south of Wellsford late this afternoon Quinn and Tillett led the Instra.com Modern standings by 24 seconds from Inkster and Winn, with Smith and Lowe just 10 seconds further back in third, the pair having displaced the Nissan GT-R35 of Clark Proctor and Tony Callaghan and Subaru Impreza driving Targa Rotorua winner Leigh Hopper and his co-driver Shaun Bawden.

"Yeah, we've had a really good day today, much better than yesterday," said Smith as he was waiting for his turn to do a sprint down the airstrip at Springhill Farm.

"I was just too nervous, too cautious going into turns yesterday, not carrying enough speed. Towards the end of the day I was starting to get there but today we're right up there setting equal times with the fast boys."

Best of the rest this time was Proctor and Callaghan, the pair quick but still struggling with niggling engine management issues.

"Just computer glitches really, said Proctor as his crew swarmed over his GT-R35. In the last two stages yesterday I had no four-wheel-drive at all and we thought we had corrected it today, but unfortunately the first two stages today, same problem, two wheel drive, so straight off the line we had wheelspin, every corner we had wheelspin, understeer into every corner, it has just been an absolute nightmare. It just throws your rhythm out and is hard to get back on top of it really."

One driver with no complaints about just two wheels doing the driving, however, was front-running V8 Touring Car driver Andy Booth, behind the wheel of Paul Halford's Maserati Trofeo.

Though listed on the entry as Halford's co-driver it was Booth doing the driving - and loving it - today, Halford's big Italian grand tourer a regular feature of the top ten in the stages and ending the day between the much lighter four-wheel-driver Subaru WRX Impreas of brothers Rick and Joel Giddy and Kim Blatchley & David Free in eighth place.

In the Metal Man Classic category Aucklanders Barry Kirk-Burnnand and late co-driver replacement Rob Wylie wrested the lead off Barry's nephew Mark Kirk-Burnnand and his own replacement co-driver Dave O'Carroll after another fascinating day of cat-and-mouse inter family rivalry in matching BMW M3s.

Unfortunately problems changing a tyre saw the Mark Kirk-Burnnand and Dave O'Carroll entry penalised for arriving at a stage start late, allowing V8-engined Datsun 240Z pair Allan Lewis and Colin Cole to split the family pair for second place.

The biggest improvers of the day, however, were Vincent Bristow and Jeff Ashfield in a Mk 11 Ford Escort RS1800. They topped the Metalman Classic time sheets in two of the stages and finished second - to either Barry or Mark Kirk-Burnnand - in three of the other four.

Also proudly flying the Ford flag were Peter Jones and Neil Andrews in their Mk 1 Escort. They ended the day fifth overall in the Metman Classic standings.

After an overnight stop in Takanini, South Auckland, tonight, the Targa New Zealand event heads south into the Waikato tomorrow with stages in the west in the morning, and the south in the afternoon before an overnight stop in Taupo.

On Friday the event continues through the lower North Island to Palmerston North then on Saturday crosses into Hawke's Bay for a final run to the finish in Havelock North.