Friday, 15 April 2011
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
That's Just about it Folks ...
... But I will load some more photos and some footage up onto YouTube, when I get home to the UK next week, so keep popping back if you might be interested in those.
Thanks for reading.
James
Thanks for reading.
James
Thanks
Particular thanks are due to:
Helen Coad of Octagon, the organisers, she's endured my inane questions and listened to my tribulations for 18 months, and she's brilliant.
David Ogg and navigator Michael Farrell. Helen introduced me to David some months back to give me some perspective on the event. At times when this whole project looked a bit improbable, it was great to have David and Helen, whilst not exactly 'in the canoe' with me, at least cheering me on from the bank as I paddled against the current! Having arrived in Oz, David and Michael have been fantastic, with logistics, as chauffeur, recce guide, and friends.
Charlie and Mary Hughes and their crew; and Stephen and Ginetta Rochester and their crew; your patient help is hugely appreciated.
XL Insurance, my employer, for giving me the time off and the much-appreciated sponsorship towards shipping costs.
OAMPs, for sorting several insurance issues that arose.
Geoff (and Grant) Kelly for getting the car back on track and Targa, when it looked like it might be going pear-shaped after the mechanical problems at Phillip Islands.
Michelle at Gibson Freight in Melbourne, and Martin at DHL Motorsport in Slough - please bring it back safely!
TR Enterprises, Steve, Simon, James and the rest of the gang in Blidworth, Notts., for building a car that has taken all that I have thrown at in the last few weeks, and still looks and goes good. It's heading back your way shortly, so you can put it all back together again!
Massive thanks to Jason Williams for agreeing to sit alongside me whilst I made my rally debut - considering that you were tackling your role as co-driver as a novice too, I think your approach has been excellent, there turned out to be rather a lot more to it than either of us realised and your work on the Pace Notes themselves was tremendous, but your role is much more than just about the Pace Notes. Thanks a lot mate, it's been great to share this experience with you.
Lastly, to Nic, my wife and my children, Emily and Freddie, for being as supportive of my activities as anyone could possibly wish for. I don't (well I try not to!) take it for granted.
Helen Coad of Octagon, the organisers, she's endured my inane questions and listened to my tribulations for 18 months, and she's brilliant.
David Ogg and navigator Michael Farrell. Helen introduced me to David some months back to give me some perspective on the event. At times when this whole project looked a bit improbable, it was great to have David and Helen, whilst not exactly 'in the canoe' with me, at least cheering me on from the bank as I paddled against the current! Having arrived in Oz, David and Michael have been fantastic, with logistics, as chauffeur, recce guide, and friends.
Charlie and Mary Hughes and their crew; and Stephen and Ginetta Rochester and their crew; your patient help is hugely appreciated.
XL Insurance, my employer, for giving me the time off and the much-appreciated sponsorship towards shipping costs.
OAMPs, for sorting several insurance issues that arose.
Geoff (and Grant) Kelly for getting the car back on track and Targa, when it looked like it might be going pear-shaped after the mechanical problems at Phillip Islands.
Michelle at Gibson Freight in Melbourne, and Martin at DHL Motorsport in Slough - please bring it back safely!
TR Enterprises, Steve, Simon, James and the rest of the gang in Blidworth, Notts., for building a car that has taken all that I have thrown at in the last few weeks, and still looks and goes good. It's heading back your way shortly, so you can put it all back together again!
Massive thanks to Jason Williams for agreeing to sit alongside me whilst I made my rally debut - considering that you were tackling your role as co-driver as a novice too, I think your approach has been excellent, there turned out to be rather a lot more to it than either of us realised and your work on the Pace Notes themselves was tremendous, but your role is much more than just about the Pace Notes. Thanks a lot mate, it's been great to share this experience with you.
Lastly, to Nic, my wife and my children, Emily and Freddie, for being as supportive of my activities as anyone could possibly wish for. I don't (well I try not to!) take it for granted.
Trophy Time
The post event dinner was held on the Monday evening, the day after the event, and was huge, well over 500 people. A good dinner, although perhaps the presentations went on a bit too long, but it was well compered. Highlights included the Party Tape, which the tv crew had put together from the more amusing or entertaining clips during the week, it was very well edited, and if you've made a fool of yourself on some stage of other, you can expect to see yourself here! They'd done a similar one for the 20th anniversary using clips from all the preceding years (embarrassingly including David Ogg's previous Targa mount, a Ferrari 365, down a bank at an angle of about 40o!), this tape also got a second showing. The highlight for me though was a ten minute ramble by a long-time competitor, ex-pat Northern Irishman, John Blake, who was hilarious recounting a few stories of past and present indiscretions, both his and other people's.
The other highlight was of course picking up our Targa Trophies, for hitting the times, whilst these had been achieved by quite a lot of crews, it seems that this is a pretty rare event for novices on this event, let alone complete novice Rallyistes, and it's just dawning on us what we have managed to achieve... We are chuffed to bits! A few people are certainly impressed, to the extent that we've been offered a fully prepared Holden Torana if we want to come back and run again but don't want to go to the expense of bringing a car down next time.
Would we come again ... Too right we would! Fantastic event, fantastic roads, lots of lovely people. Let's make no mistake though, it's a major undertaking to bring a car from Europe, both in terms of costs, and time to organise oneself and do battle with the bureaucrats... If I were to come again, I would definitely prepare the car more appropriately for an Endurance event over roads with some bumpy surfaces. We've had a lot of marvellous help whenever we needed it, for which we are very grateful, but I would definitely want some support crew next time, this of course would increase costs somewhat, but at the end of a long day it would be good not to have to wait in sweaty race suits to borrow someone else's tools etc. I would also pre-book fuel, just to relieve the stress of wondering whether you have enough fuel to run the stages and road sections before the next filling station hoves into view. I would definitely run with Pace Notes again, although I would not alter the philosophy of 'driving what I can see'.
Not sure when, but I'll be back ... Just need to work out whether to do Targa New Zealand, or Targa Newfoundland, or Classic Targa Adelaide before coming back to Tas!
The other highlight was of course picking up our Targa Trophies, for hitting the times, whilst these had been achieved by quite a lot of crews, it seems that this is a pretty rare event for novices on this event, let alone complete novice Rallyistes, and it's just dawning on us what we have managed to achieve... We are chuffed to bits! A few people are certainly impressed, to the extent that we've been offered a fully prepared Holden Torana if we want to come back and run again but don't want to go to the expense of bringing a car down next time.
Would we come again ... Too right we would! Fantastic event, fantastic roads, lots of lovely people. Let's make no mistake though, it's a major undertaking to bring a car from Europe, both in terms of costs, and time to organise oneself and do battle with the bureaucrats... If I were to come again, I would definitely prepare the car more appropriately for an Endurance event over roads with some bumpy surfaces. We've had a lot of marvellous help whenever we needed it, for which we are very grateful, but I would definitely want some support crew next time, this of course would increase costs somewhat, but at the end of a long day it would be good not to have to wait in sweaty race suits to borrow someone else's tools etc. I would also pre-book fuel, just to relieve the stress of wondering whether you have enough fuel to run the stages and road sections before the next filling station hoves into view. I would definitely run with Pace Notes again, although I would not alter the philosophy of 'driving what I can see'.
Not sure when, but I'll be back ... Just need to work out whether to do Targa New Zealand, or Targa Newfoundland, or Classic Targa Adelaide before coming back to Tas!
Targa Titbits
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.
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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