Targa is very popular with most of the population in Tasmania, it's a big deal here, schools give kids time off, you can see people in the strangest of vantage points, and sitting in their front yards, or with sofas and a pile of stubbies in the back of a pick-up (locally 'ute') etc. It is all in the name of public relations that we run some of the in-town stages, and that's what the Launceston TargaFest is all about too. It seems appropriate to give these people a wave as you go by on the touring stages. Early in the week I gave a wave which in retrospect seemed a bit limp, and this was to two rufty-tufty types sitting on the back of a ute ... a bit too Brokeback Mountain! So that made us realise that you really need a full range of waves, appropriate for different audiences: the 'English Royalty' for those of a certain age, Jason's cheery 'tellytubby' wave for school kids, but something a bit more manly is certainly required when you hit 'Deliverance' country.
Whilst waiting in the park for the start of the Prologue stage I was approached by an ex-pat Brit, Brian Dermott, who'd been astonished to see the Historic Sports Car Club badges on our car; turned out he was a founder member of the club, and ran in a number of events in the very early days, before emigrating to Victoria. Brian, it was a pleasure to meet you. Any Brits reading this, Brian has offered to be a point of contact, or perhaps even more active support, for any other Brits going out, particularly HSCC members.
We enjoyed meeting father and son team Frazer and Andre Gasgoine, Frazer was a 'Legend' meaning that he had run in a number of the early events, and was invited back for the 20th anniversary, with certain 'grandfather' rights as far as car-specification was concerned - effectively they could run to the regs of the period they ran in. In their case they ran a Ferrari 308 GTB, nice looking car, they ran with no pace notes, and they ran very well. We enjoyed their company. Must be a buzz to have 'Legend' emblazoned on the side of your car!
Best noise of the week, not the Lamborghinis, not even the Porsche 908, but the Jensen CV8 of the Ullrichs, a hugely developed car, not sure that anyone from West Bromwich would recognise it!
Of course we had made a massive effort to get to the event, but teams that had driven from Queensland had at least an 18 hour drive to the ferry in Melbourne, teams from Western Australia had to drive for days to cross Oz ... Pretty epic when you think about it, and it puts us to shame in the UK, when grids are down at some race meetings because people can't be bothered to drive to the farther-flung circuits, which are probably a 5hour drive at most from the majority.
The island has some great place names, Brits would feel right at home, I saw Bridport, Epping Forest and Melton Mowbray for example, there were also a few oddities, such as Laughing Jack and Penguin, but certainly the most amusing was a place called 'Nowhere Else', can you imagine having that conversation with a policeman after he's stopped you - "what's your address sonny", "Nowhere, Officer", "Don't be funny with me, Young Man, where do you live?" etc!
I've mentioned it before, but the scenery really is spectacular - it's a big area yet the population is only half a million or so, of which over half live in Hobart, Launceston, Devonport and a couple of other towns, so that means the rest of the place is pretty sparsely inhabited. Even driving up the state's main road from Hobart to Devonport, there were times when you had 10km views in every direction, and yet the only evidence of humankind was the road itself, some telegraph poles alongside and some fencing stretching into the distance.
I think we were extremely lucky with the weather, although we had to contend with some damp roads at times, for us it was only actually raining as we tackled three stages; a lot of the time we were running under blue skies, I'm led to believe that most Targas are rather wetter than this one, especially as this year was run 3 weeks earlier than the usual date. To make up for our lucky weather, Monday's 300km drive from Hobart to Devonport for the ferry was hideous, torrential rain, roadworks on much of the main road, and quite a lot of heavy lorries raising huge walls of spray - most unpleasant, but I'm grateful that we only had to contend with that after the event had finished.
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