Targa Tasmania 2016 - Day 3
It was a promising day of racing as Alex and I left Launceston, heading north west to Burnie. The day's stages are challenging in their own right and the Shelby GT is raring to hit the roads.
I thought I had the fix for the misfire and tried to do a crank re-learn, however the computer wouldn’t let me do it, so the misfire remains. The new brakes we fitted seem to be holding up. Today's stages are very high speed for long periods and then have some downhill heavy braking that will test the brakes, what brakes!
On the Sheffield stage the rotors on the Mustang started to show cracks again, so this was disappointing. The problem is that you have to change your style of driving to combat the caution required, not using your brakes as hard or as much as you would like therefore maintaining mid corner speed higher than I would like. This is really challenging.
We checked the rotors carefully after each stage to see if they had expanded to a really unsafe level. I managed to drive around the misfire, and its intervening was minimal. Again, having to change the drive habits of normal power/RPM use also gave my driving skills a test!
Alex and I were thinking that our day was lost. We were so surprised to see that we had maintained our lead over 4th place and remain in 3rd position in the GT2 Competition, 17 seconds in front of the Viper driven by Mike Pritchard, while the Competition leaders increase their unreachable lead.
After servicing the Shelby GT, the Burnie Fest was put on for the locals to see the cars and crew up close. I was absolutely exhausted and went to Terry and Cathy's house for dinner. After a hot shower and a feed I decided to mingle with the crowd and sign some posters - the Shelby GT is a real favourite.
LEG 3
High Plains 02.34 (4th)
Moriarty 03.09 (4th)
Paloona 07.41 (4th)
Sheffield 06.41 (4th)
Cethana 17.31 (4th)
Castra 04.24 (3rd)
Gunns Plains 07.32 (3rd)
Riana 17.04 (4th)
GT2 Class after Leg 3 - 3rd (04.59 behind leader)
Keep up with all the latest on our Mustang Motorsport Targa Facebook Page for all the action and results from Targa Tasmania 2016. Thank you to Angryman Photography and Otherside Productions for the great photos!
