MRT Rally News - Targa Tasmania
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MRT Rally News - Targa Tasmania
here is the MRT News of the day 
Sunday 4 pm 16th February.
Our target for the event was a top ten result....
Considering we spent almost one third of the event with a faulty spark plug we are certainly happy with our result!
1st Jim Richards Barry Oliver Porsche 911 4wd turbo
2nd Max Warwick / Georgia Warwick Porsche 911 GT3 4wd turbo
3rd Greg Garwood / Mark Perry Nissan Skyline GTR
4th Peter Bradbury / Andrew Bullard Porsche 911 GT2
5th Jamie Vandenberg / Simon Vandenberg Mitsubishi Lancer EVO 3
6th Andrew Murfet / Will Logan Nissan Pulsar GTiR
7th Mark Cummings / Chris Alp Porsche 911 Carerra RS
8th Miles Sandy / Lyndal Drake Impreza WRX
9th Jeff Beable / Nerida Beable Porsche 911 4WD Turbo
10th Brett Middleton / Andrew Benefield Impreza STi
After a conservative start on SS1, I made a error on Stage 2 with a big brake lock up into the Spectator point, then stalled the engine and had a very good look at the bank! In little more than 5km of competitive we had dropped to 30th outright.
We headed back to Burnie to pack the cars away for Saturdays main event.
SATURDAY
Main Stages for the day were Helleyer Gorge 13km and Savage River 26km, both fantastic stages run in both directions.
A few other short stages were also thrown in for good measure with total stage distance for the day of approximately 90 km.
Lunch was a very enjoyable sit down affair provided by the organisers at the end of the Savage River stage whilst officials turned the stage around and we raced back out!
The Morning stages allowed Andrew and myself to get more tuned into the roads and grip. Remember this was not gravel so I was learning fast!
Stage times were very average as the car was running on 3 cylinders due to a faulty spark plug. Only at High RPM did we manage to get the car to run clean. Ironically we diagnosed this on the Friday night service, however in the limited time available at service we only managed to change 3 plugs, and the 4th one turned out to be the faulty one! The Savage River service allowed us to change the dodgy plug, which turned out to be missing 1/2 its electrode!
On the afternoon stages the weather was warming up and so was the pace, we managed to claw back some lost time, including setting 4th fastest time in the run back out of Savage River, and move back up the field to 14th place.
Our challenge was to not try too hard and slip off the road, remembering we were on 16 inch Falken Azenis, a great road tyre, but not really a true race tyre! Incredibly they were holding up whilst some teams were suffering in the heat with too soft a tyre!
Saturday's event ended with a 1 hr service back in Burnie and again the cars were locked away for the night.
SUNDAY
A relatively early start at 7.15am featured a repeat of the Helleyer Gorge stage and some other smaller stages within close proximity of Burnie.
Our challenge was to move closer to our top ten target, ahead of us was a batch of Porsche's,,,, was every Porsche and GTR Skyline in Australia at this event?!
Starting at 14th over all we needed to push hard to move up. Ahead of us Jim Richards was looking boring and proving very VERY fast! The Whites in their rocket Skyline were pushing hard as were the rally boys, Murffet, Sandy and Vandenburg.
On the first run through Hellyer Gorge the two Porsche's ahead of us took a further 10 and 5 seconds respectively from us and our target looked gone. However on the short 4km and 2.5km stages that followed we were able to at least equal their times as we headed back into Burnie for service.
The next 7km stage was new to Rally Tasmania and featured some tricky corners. This seemed to level the playing field as we took 5 seconds out of both the Porsche's. A reverse run trough Highclere hillclimb saw another 4 seconds from one of them and the pressure was on for the final 13.5km blast through Hellyer Gorge. We managed to turn the table on the Porsche of Simon Bartter to take 8 seconds from him in a flat out run that saw the speedo off the dial across the finish line.
With the unfortunate exit of a couple of top ten runners we were able to reach that top ten target by 3 seconds!!
A great event that will see us back next year now that we have learnt how to drive on the black stuff.
We also learnt how fast the GTR's and Porsche's were! VERY FAST!
More news and pics
(attached file courtesy)
www.rallytasmania.com.au
Please view our partners whom without them we could not be at the event! http://www.mrtrally.com.au/team/sponsors.htm
Brett Middleton
Middleton Rally Team
We Rally, You Win (STi Version 5)
http://www.MRTrally.com.au main pages
http://www.MRTrally.com.au/shop buy on line
Our target for the event was a top ten result....
Considering we spent almost one third of the event with a faulty spark plug we are certainly happy with our result!
1st Jim Richards Barry Oliver Porsche 911 4wd turbo
2nd Max Warwick / Georgia Warwick Porsche 911 GT3 4wd turbo
3rd Greg Garwood / Mark Perry Nissan Skyline GTR
4th Peter Bradbury / Andrew Bullard Porsche 911 GT2
5th Jamie Vandenberg / Simon Vandenberg Mitsubishi Lancer EVO 3
6th Andrew Murfet / Will Logan Nissan Pulsar GTiR
7th Mark Cummings / Chris Alp Porsche 911 Carerra RS
8th Miles Sandy / Lyndal Drake Impreza WRX
9th Jeff Beable / Nerida Beable Porsche 911 4WD Turbo
10th Brett Middleton / Andrew Benefield Impreza STi
After a conservative start on SS1, I made a error on Stage 2 with a big brake lock up into the Spectator point, then stalled the engine and had a very good look at the bank! In little more than 5km of competitive we had dropped to 30th outright.
We headed back to Burnie to pack the cars away for Saturdays main event.
SATURDAY
Main Stages for the day were Helleyer Gorge 13km and Savage River 26km, both fantastic stages run in both directions.
A few other short stages were also thrown in for good measure with total stage distance for the day of approximately 90 km.
Lunch was a very enjoyable sit down affair provided by the organisers at the end of the Savage River stage whilst officials turned the stage around and we raced back out!
The Morning stages allowed Andrew and myself to get more tuned into the roads and grip. Remember this was not gravel so I was learning fast!
Stage times were very average as the car was running on 3 cylinders due to a faulty spark plug. Only at High RPM did we manage to get the car to run clean. Ironically we diagnosed this on the Friday night service, however in the limited time available at service we only managed to change 3 plugs, and the 4th one turned out to be the faulty one! The Savage River service allowed us to change the dodgy plug, which turned out to be missing 1/2 its electrode!
On the afternoon stages the weather was warming up and so was the pace, we managed to claw back some lost time, including setting 4th fastest time in the run back out of Savage River, and move back up the field to 14th place.
Our challenge was to not try too hard and slip off the road, remembering we were on 16 inch Falken Azenis, a great road tyre, but not really a true race tyre! Incredibly they were holding up whilst some teams were suffering in the heat with too soft a tyre!
Saturday's event ended with a 1 hr service back in Burnie and again the cars were locked away for the night.
SUNDAY
A relatively early start at 7.15am featured a repeat of the Helleyer Gorge stage and some other smaller stages within close proximity of Burnie.
Our challenge was to move closer to our top ten target, ahead of us was a batch of Porsche's,,,, was every Porsche and GTR Skyline in Australia at this event?!
Starting at 14th over all we needed to push hard to move up. Ahead of us Jim Richards was looking boring and proving very VERY fast! The Whites in their rocket Skyline were pushing hard as were the rally boys, Murffet, Sandy and Vandenburg.
On the first run through Hellyer Gorge the two Porsche's ahead of us took a further 10 and 5 seconds respectively from us and our target looked gone. However on the short 4km and 2.5km stages that followed we were able to at least equal their times as we headed back into Burnie for service.
The next 7km stage was new to Rally Tasmania and featured some tricky corners. This seemed to level the playing field as we took 5 seconds out of both the Porsche's. A reverse run trough Highclere hillclimb saw another 4 seconds from one of them and the pressure was on for the final 13.5km blast through Hellyer Gorge. We managed to turn the table on the Porsche of Simon Bartter to take 8 seconds from him in a flat out run that saw the speedo off the dial across the finish line.
With the unfortunate exit of a couple of top ten runners we were able to reach that top ten target by 3 seconds!!
A great event that will see us back next year now that we have learnt how to drive on the black stuff.
We also learnt how fast the GTR's and Porsche's were! VERY FAST!
More news and pics
(attached file courtesy)
www.rallytasmania.com.au
Please view our partners whom without them we could not be at the event! http://www.mrtrally.com.au/team/sponsors.htm
Brett Middleton
Middleton Rally Team
We Rally, You Win (STi Version 5)
http://www.MRTrally.com.au main pages
http://www.MRTrally.com.au/shop buy on line
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Originally posted by 400HP930
Its nice to see so many porsches kicking ass.
A 911 is not exactly the kind of car most people would concider a world class rally racer.
Its nice to see so many porsches kicking ass.
A 911 is not exactly the kind of car most people would concider a world class rally racer.
