Motorsport: Two down, one to go for Inkster

Inkster and Winn are well on their way to a Targa clean sweep this year. Photo / GroundSky

With their win in the weekend's Targa Rotorua tarmac motor rally in the Bay of Plenty and Waikato it's a case of 'only one more to go' for Auckland pair Glenn Inkster and Spencer Winn and their Mitsubishi Evo 6.

At the start of the year former gravel ace Inkster said he wanted to win all three New Zealand Targa events this year.

He and co-driver Winn gave that goal a good start by winning the Targa Bambina event in the Coromandel in February. And they gave it another nudge this weekend, winning the sixth annual Targa Rotorua event by just over a minute from last year's winner Leigh Hopper and his new co-driver Simon Kirkpatrick (Subaru Impreza WRX) with Paeroa pair Mark Whyte and Tracey Lance third a further nine an three quarter minutes back in their V8-powered Toyota Altezza.

Now only victory in the annual six-day Targa New Zealand event in October remains before the pair can claim the trifecta.

This year's Targa Rotorua event attracted almost 90 entries from across New Zealand and was held in cool most mostly dry weather over close to 400 kms of closed tarmac roads on both sides of the Kaimais.

On Saturday top Rotorua rally driver Dean Sumner and co-driver Malcolm Peden (Mitsubishi Evo9) battled Inkster and Winn, Hopper and Fitzpatrick and Australian pair Tony Quinn and Naomi Tillett (Nissan GTR-35) for the lead until hitting a bank and damaging his car too badly to continue.

On Sunday morning Sydney-based New Zealander Stuart Scoular, 42, was airlifted to Hamilton hospital with serious leg injuries after an http://www.nzherald.co.nz/motoring/news/article.cfm?c_id=9&objectid=10812162.

Scoular and his co-driver, 35-year-old brother Bret, who also lives in Australia, were running in sixth place at the time of the accident. Bret was also taken to Hamilton hospital for observation with minor injuries.

Tony Quinn and Naomi Tillett were amongst a number of competitors who stopped to render assistance at the scene of the accident and - in their case - decided not to continue after it.

With the results of the first stage on Sunday cancelled because of the Scoular accident the battle for 2012 event honours started at Stage 9 near Mangare west of Lichfield. That stage and the next were won by Leigh Hopper and Simon Kirkpatrick allowing the pair to close right up on overnight leaders Inkster and Winn.

It was Inkster and Winn who won the next three stages, however, to re-assert their dominance ahead of the lunch stop at Cambridge. Inkster and Winn remained on top after lunch though Hopper and Kirkpatrick took one more stage win off them before they were back on top for the final two stages west of Matamata.

While all this was going on Paeroa pair Mark Whyte and Tracey Lance found their first day lead in the Instra.com Modern 2WD class under attack. Pukekohe pair Gary Murphy and James Bell (BMW M3) beat them to the quickest class time in the ninth stage only to leave the road and slip down the order in the 10th.

Then is was the turn of Hamilton pair Barry Hare and Andrew Mackintosh (Mini Cooper S) to give them a fright, Hare and Mackintosh eventually finishing an impressive third in class and fifth overall.

Usually the Metalman Classic 2WD class is a battle between Mark Kirk-Burnnand and his co-driver (this time Dave O'Carrol) from Wellington in their BMW M3 and Auckland pair Neil Tolich and Cully Paterson. But this year Tolich and Paterson were forced out of the event on the first day with a broken camshaft in their V8-engined Ford Capri Perana while Kirk-Burnnand and O'Carroll ran out of petrol.

The latter pair were able to buy petrol from a farmer and continue but they ended up down the finishing order in ninth place in class and 24th overall. Happy to take their place at the front of the Classic class field were Taranaki Targa stalwarts Stuart Rose and Gary Renall (Toyota Hilux V8) and Richard 'Bunter' Pierce and Willie Roach (Ford Falcon EB V8).

After the first day Speedway Modified class NZ #1 Pierce and co-driver Roach led the way but during the second day they slipped back down the order with Rose and Renall claiming class victory (not to mention sixth overall) from giant-killers Rob Ryan and Paul Burborough in their rapid Toyota AE86 and the Holden Commodore V8 of annual high profile Speedway driver, Brent Emerson and his co-driver Sheryl Hanright.