Targa Tasmania 2017 - Day 6

After a good night’s sleep in Hobart, we awoke to a partly cloudy forecast with dry roads. We were still looking to have a crack at making up time on the guys we have been chasing for the past two days, however it would be difficult to gain huge time on today’s short stages.

Tinderbox was first up, a rough tricky stage lots of sharp corners.One moment we had was on a 5 right where the Mustang bounced in the air and landed just in time for the next corner! We finished fourth, ahead of Quinn and Stokell who we were chasing.

Pelverata is another rough stage, and Stokell took time of us as Quinn and I had equal times of 5.42. On Gardners Bay we again equalled Quinn and took three seconds off Stokell. On Oyster  Cove there was an accident with a car blocking the road, so we all had to stop and weave around the wreckage, then we all snaked behind each other. Eight of us racing to the end was a bit of fun. For this we ended up with a derived time - all equal second.

On Cygnet we took time off Stokell and Quinn, not enough though. On the last stage, Longley, we took 20 seconds off Stokell and 3 seconds off Quinn, and then celebrated having successfully completed the 26th running of Targa Tasmania 2017, and on to the official finish. We finished the event sixth in GT2 competition (only 5 seconds behind Quinn in fifth), and seventh outright overall - a top ten finish in the most arduous event in motorsport on machine and crew.

We are very happy considering the conditions this year. Well done Kate for navigating, and a fantastic effort on all the logistics and timing - thank you! And thank you Albert, my business partner of over 27 years, for coming down and experiencing Targa crewing with Aaron. They made an awesome service crew and kept the Shelby in check. Pretty much the Mustang with the Shelby GT build ran faultlessly and is basically ready for the next event. It was great Mustang fun to drive and, as always, a crowd favourite.

Thank you to Simon from Red Bolt Visual Communication for putting out the Pony Press each day, and to all the support of our sponsors - Shelby American for building an awesome Shelby GT Mustang, the new kids on the team, Castrol, Other Side Productions, Must Love Cars, and all our long term sponsors, Road Warrior Plus, Ferntree Gully Bolts, Rohde Smash Repairs, Roush, Shockworks, Hornet Press, VBOX Australia, and Invisible Car Bras.

And special thanks to Robyn and James and staff at Mustang Motorsport, and Matthew and all at Crossover Car Conversions, who converted the Mustang to right hand drive - the best engineered conversions in the country.

Thank you to the volunteers that put the Targa Tasmania package together to make it possible, and the Tasmanian public, police and governments for allowing us all to utilise these fantastic roads in closed conditions. And thanks to God for giving us wet challenging conditions to keep us sharp, 

Well another Targa is over. This concludes the 20th time for me, and they all carry a special memory. Thank you to our Targa family for the support and kind words each day - you are all awesome!

God bless,
Craig.

A big thank you to Angryman Photography for the great action shots!