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How to Crash and Burn in the Holiday Isle |
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5 Days On the Road in the Targa Tasmania |
"Why would you want to spend a lot of time and
money risking your life and favorite car in a race around Tasmania?"
This was the question posed by a certain person close to me who shall remain nameless.
Good question. I'm still trying to think of a short answer.
I was only vaguely aware of the first running of the Targa Tasmania in April 1992. Having grown up in Northern Tasmania, with family still there, word had filtered back to me here in Melbourne about a bunch of well heeled motoring enthusiasts speeding around the scenic roads of my homeland in some of the worlds most exotic cars.
While back in Tasmania on holidays at the end of 1992, sitting in the afternoon sun and chatting with family over a cup of tea, the conversation turned to the Targa, and the second running approaching in April 1993. As visions of Tony Curtis in "The Great Race" and Dastardly Dan, Penelope Pitstop and others in "Wacky Races" drifted through my mind, the idea of putting into action not one but two of my long held dreams began to germinate - to race a classic car in a cross country rally, and to return to Tasmania with my Alfa GTV6 to drive on the challenging roads where I had grown up.
Rumour had it that the 1993 event was fully booked, but a family member volunteered to track me down an entry form and forward it to me on my return to Melbourne. I felt that I may be able to get in early for the 1994 event if nothing else. I duly filled out the entry form (or more correctly the "I would like to be invited to enter" form) and sent it off with the required $500 deposit.
Nothing more was heard for a few weeks, and I had pretty much resigned myself to having to read about the race in the newspaper, when a large package arrived in my letterbox. It contained hours of reading material about the race, and a letter that told me my nomination had been accepted and I was officially invited to enter myself in the Targa.
It must have been about this time that the reality hit me that I had absolutely no motor sport experience whatsoever, beyond what you can get from watching hours of Formula 1 at 2 in the morning and developing a burning desire to be a car racing legend. Who was I kidding that I could successfully race a car around 2000 km of wet, foggy, narrow, hilly roads and live to tell about it? The visions of speeding down a glorious country road with my hair on fire and the roar of an Italian engine reverberating off the hills began to be replaced by visions of my highly polished pride and joy nose down in a ravine, with some broken guide posts and pointing spectators on a cliff top the only give away of my final resting place.
A quick check of the latest copy of the Cross and Serpent revealed that I had just missed the AROCA's last driver training course available before I left for Tasmania. A hurried call to Alistair Grigg for suggestions as to where I could learn some driving technique pointed me to Jim Murcott's, and I duly completed a basic and high performance course, which were excellent and served to show me how much I didn't know about good driving. Max Kinnersly kindly gave me the benefit of his experiences in the 1992 Targa, and the Alfa Club knowledgeable also pointed me towards people such as Hugh Harrison and Vin Sharp for some worthwhile improvements to the suspension of my car, which was the limit of the preparation I did, other than the safety requirements of fire extinguisher, first aid kit, etc. The major preparation for the race involved filling in forms, sending money, organising accommodation, sending money, booking ferry trip, sending money...enough to keep me very busy for the three months before the race. My wife Fiona very politely and astutely declined to act as navigator for the race, and Alan McPharlane, my friend and co-director of our software company LogiX, inexplicably and rashly agreed to risk life and limb to do the job. Aside from a lot of fun, we thought it might be a good opportunity to trial a new in-car computer system we had developed to monitor our race performance. Our wives agreed to come along as a support crew (well, team shoppers would be closer to the truth). And so we set off, a driver who had never raced before, a navigator who had never navigated before, and a car generally accustomed to being driven around the city. What could possibly go wrong?
Finally the big day arrived when we were due to set off. In the great tradition of starting as you mean to continue we were an hour late getting to Dutton's for the planned procession of Targa cars to Station Pier, but as a bonus we pulled up at the same time as did Tasmania's Chas Kelly in his Ferrari F40. Inquiry revealed that his car had just arrived from Italy where it was being repaired after his well-publicised crash in the 1992 Targa. The two of us made our own mini-procession to the pier, and we pretended that it was our car that every one was looking at. The promised gala festival on the pier to send us off wasn't really all that gala, but being queued up with all the exotic machinery couldn't help but make us feel as if we were involved in some sort of big adventure. John Large (president of CAMS, instigator of Targa Tasmania and prolific speech maker throughout the event) made a speech wishing us well on our journey. The crossing was fairly uneventful in our recollection, but was later described in one of John Large's speeches as "the party to end all parties...". We must have missed it.
Arrival in Devonport revealed a cool and fine Sunday morning on the docks. It also revealed a brass band with a curious repertoire of Village People music, and about 2000 people who had left their homes and ventured out at 8am on a cold morning to see our cars, which were put on display for a couple of hours after we rolled them off the ferry. The City of Devonport put on a very welcome breakfast for all competitors, and we were generally treated like honoured guests. The unexpected interest and hospitality were a sign of things to come. John Large was beamed in from whichever planet he normally inhabits and made another speech welcoming us to Tasmania. Crowds lined both sides of the road and a man with a microphone and an unusual sense of humour ("...and here comes a car with a couple of old bags on the back...". Was he referring to the luggage or the passengers?) presented our cars as one by one we filed out of the carpark to begin our journey to Launceston. We weren't due to present the car for pre-race scrutineering in Launceston until midday Monday, so we spent Sunday relaxing at my family's home in Northern Tasmania. The first hiccup came when we realised late Sunday afternoon that all our documentation required for scrutineering, CAMS licences, etc. had been left in Melbourne. Panic followed, but hurried calls to couriers and relatives ensured the required paper work would arrive in Launceston the following day.
We drove into Launceston to collect the precious parcel of paperwork from the courier, then continued on to Simmons Plains raceway which had been made available for practice for the morning. Our arrival found a sea of cars and drivers standing around looking confused, until the shout went up the first ten cars could take to the track. The resultant scramble to be first in the pit lane queue made Myers stocktake sale look like a day in the library, but we made our position. At this point I realised that I had yet to pump up my tyres to the required pressure, so a comedy began whereby we attempted to maintain our place in the live and let die pit queue while pumping up the tyres with an air compressor. Finally we made it onto the track and put in some promising laps, which incidentally gave Alan his first taste of sitting in the passenger seat at speed. Fortunately he enjoyed the experience, and even started talking about wanting to race his Porsche. Scrutineering later that day was uneventful. The hardest part was attaching all the stickers that we were required to put on the car.
Monday evening found us at the Targa Caberet, an event that revealed several truths about the nature of the Targa as a whole. Firstly, we paid $85 a head for a meal we could have found in a local pub. Secondly, in a room full of around 500 people, we were just about the only ones under 30. The conclusion we drew was that the event is mainly patronised by either wealthy business men in the 40 - 60 age group, or serious club sport type car enthusiasts (some people fitted into both categories) and most of the social events are designed accordingly. Just for something different, John Large made a speech.
Up early again, we drove out to the first targa stage near Launceston and did a couple of runs over it before heading home for breakfast. The minimum time set for the targa stage was 4 minutes. The best we could manage was 4 minutes 10 seconds, but this was while keeping within the speed limit and avoiding the occasional early morning garbage truck, so we were reasonably pleased. We also made our first and only attempt to make pace notes, to supplement to none too detailed official road books supplied. Again we headed into Launceston, collected a hire car for our wives to follow us around in, then attended the compulsory navigators briefing, where the details of the race organisation were explained. The road books were handed out, giving maps and route notes for each day of the race. Most of the maps consisted only of squiggly black lines, which led to some cynical amusement throughout the race.
After this we delivered the car to the Launceston Silverdome, where it was impounded and put on display until the start of the race. Next stop was the competitors' briefing, explaining procedures for entering and leaving controls, how not to be penalised for speeding, etc. Quite unexpectedly, John Large made a speech.
To end the day, we attended the Targa barbecue in Launceston's beautiful Yorktown Square. We then made a brief visit to the expo at the Silverdome, just so we could feel special in public with our status as competitors. People actually paid to view our cars, and to our surprise we found enormous queues, and even overheard someone saying they had been queuing in the cold for a full hour, just to get in and see our cars. Again, I found the level of interest in the whole event quite overwhelming. I guess you could just put it down to Tasmanians not having anything better to do, but I felt that the way they embraced and supported the Targa was nothing short of incredible.
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