This Months Stories

Targa Wrest Point is go

Targa Wrest Point Course

Targa Tasmania Passes 200

New Competitions for 2009

2008 Targa Tasmania DVD

All your Targa Tasmania 2008 Vision on DVD

Corner Cutting

Tyre Rules

Modern Technical Regulations

Facebook

Website Revamp

e-News

Date Log

Well here we go again!  We know we said that last month but since then we have launched an entire new event!!

In what became the worst kept secret in motor sport (thanks Maserati CC- you were 1st again!) we launched Targa Wrest Point a few weeks ago.  Designed to bring more Targa back to the south of the state without altering our highly successful 2008 course, our own lead in event has been met with much excitement from competitors.

Comments like; “the pricing is spot on”; “we can’t wait to hit Oyster Cove again” and “can’t believe you guys got a new event approved- well done” have given us great feedback and supported our belief that the market is not diminishing; you just need to listen to your client base and deliver on the things that are important to them.

Targa Wrest Point has been structured to meet these needs with a price in line with the competitive distance on offer and a course that has been laid out to allows for easy recce.

Finally, the event is structured to allow our mainland friends to arrive Friday morning and will finish in plenty of time on Sunday to ensure they can go home Sunday night.

Gauging by the stream of entries coming in, Targa Wrest Point is fast becoming bigger than any of us could have imagined when it sat on our drawing board.

Our first entry arrived just five minutes after the email went out announcing the event and there were ten after two hours!  By the end of the next day there were 20!!  We even received an entry from Monte Carlo with Peter O’Keefe hearing about it via text and it was enough to drag him out of retirement.

How many do we have now? How does 70 sound!!! 

We can add another twenty to this from competitors who have verbally committed but have not yet sent in their paperwork.

One benefit from the running of this event that has given us all a pleasant surprise is the influx of Tasmanian competitors, many of whom stopped competing in tarmac rallies years ago mainly due to rising costs.

This event has put tarmac rallying back in their reach and it is great to see nearly 35 local entries already, which are many more than compete in Targa Tasmania currently.

This all means that spots are quickly becoming scarce and if you think that this is just marketing hype, check out the entry list on the website where we openly display our entries (as always).

http://www.targawrestpoint.com.au/Competitors/Entries.html

When we announce our entry numbers, it’s what we have not what we are dreaming of having!

If you have pencilled Targa Wrest Point into your 2009 motor sport calendar, please lodge your entry soon.  Your deposit is transferable and the balance is refundable if you can’t make it as we simply do not want to knock back entries at the last minute from our loyal Targa Tasmania competitors.

We have a much smaller road closure window for this event so it is not an open book where we can take as many entries as we can get!

For more information and application forms please call Helen Coad on (03) 6221 8866 or email Helen.coad@octagon.com

Well, we have teased you with a course and it is now starting to take shape.  We announced that there would be 13 stages but the good news is there will be 14!  The first stage on each day will be cleanable to get you in the right frame of mind.  The rest…… well you know what to do!!

Whilst we don’t have final distances yet, we do have a pretty good idea of what you will be competing on so here it is (all distances are approximate):

Apart from the return of some old favourites, the Airwalk Road promises to deliver much excitement with the stage going in starting out as a street stage in Geeveston before a fast section and then plenty of surprises on the Forestry Tasmania Road in what will be the longest stage in Australia outside of Targa Tasmania.

Added to this is the brand new stretch of road running along the waters edge starting in Dover.  At 18 k’s it promises a brand new challenge for everyone. At 43 degrees south it is the southern most tarmac rally stage in the World and will provide an early opportunity for those willing to do their homework to gain an advantage.

Road markings will be completed and recce notes will be available by mid-November, giving you all ten weeks to check it out before hand.

Supplementary Regulations are available now simply by clicking the link below:

Targa Wrest Point 2009 Regulations

For more information and application forms please call Helen Coad on (03) 6221 8866 or email Helen.coad@octagon.com

On the subject of entry numbers, Targa Tasmania now has 203 entries and passed the 200 mark a full two months earlier than last year, which ended up seeing a record five day field!

This all means we can say that another bumper field will be at the `coming of age’ event in 2009.

The course is nearing completion so we will have this out in the next month and quite amazingly (thank you AASA) the regs are now available simply by clicking the link below:

Targa Tasmania 2009 Regulations

Just a reminder that Early Modern for vehicles made from 1992 to 2002 will now debut at Targa Wrest Point so if you have a vehicle in this bracket then you have a chance to be our first ever Early Modern competition winner and stand on the podium and get drowned in champagne!

Targa Wrest Point will also run Modern, Early & Late Classic and Showroom competitions.

The latest edition is now available for $29.95 plus $4.00 postage and handling.  The special features disc is a cracker with some awesome in car footage, great interviews and at least two shots of every single car in the competition.

Click on the link below to download the order form:

It appears that many of our competitors are unaware of the fact that you can buy every second of vision captured of your car during the event.  Southern Cross will compile a complete DVD, packaged with a photo of your car on the front.

If you’d like every shot, simply email Southern Cross at orders@sctv.com.au for further details.

They certainly make a great gift for your sponsors to show them what they are getting for supporting you in Targa Tasmania.

The 2009 rules have been widely hailed as a fantastic way to reducing this problem.  To ensure we have got it right for Targa Tasmania, we will use these same rules at Targa Wrest Point so everyone gets use to them!

The rules are now outlined in both sets of regulations.

Whilst most of you could see the merit and reason for the eliminating of soft compound tyres from 2009, we have decided that we will need to address the problem of road damage in other ways thus soft compound tyres will continue to be allowed next year.

The reasons for this are many but primarily many tyre sizes do not come in other compounds and there is a huge grey area on what constitutes a soft compound with different manufacturers applying the term `soft’ in varying ways.

This in turn leads to a major issue with policing the tyres being used so on expert advice we feel that the status quo must remain.

We still need to address the issue of how to overcome the damage that modern tyres are doing to the roads we use so will continue to investigate ways to reduce this problem.

The vehicle listing is included in the supplementary regulations so we ask that if you have a modern car that you take a moment to read this list as you may well have some new freedoms for 2009!!!

The specification titles from 2009 onwards will be S1, S2 & S3 with the `S’ standing for `Specification’.  None of the major vehicles in the Modern competition will change from their current placement but there are plenty of changes as we attempt to expand the alleged `parity’ within the tarmac rally regulations to include more manufacturers then has been the case since their introduction five years ago.

Added to the list are cars at the other end of the spectrum that have not been allowed at all in the past.  These exotics will now be allowed at Targa under S1 rules as these cars are a promoters dream.

We now have a Facebook group for each event and they both continue to grow every day.

Did you know that the announcement of Targa Wrest Point was on the Targa Tasmania group page a full day before the rest of world saw it??

Some media outlets acting on a rumour found it first and were calling us hours before we sent out the press release.

Get on line and join the groups!

We can promise you that you WILL hear and see everything first!!

Log on now to http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8533036295 and request to join the Targa Tasmania group and join in the fun.

For Targa Wrest Point log on to http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35334282618

You will naturally need to set up a Facebook account and profile first before being able to join either group.

Today is the day!  Whilst we will continue to develop our new site and add things to it, she is up and running.

Go to www.targatasmania.com.au to check it out

Targa Wrest Point can be found at www.targawrestpoint.com.au

If this e-news has been forwarded to you and you would like to subscribe, simply click on the link below:

http://www.targatasmania.com.au/Newsletters.html

Targa Tasmania is supported by the Tasmanian Government through Events Tasmania.
Targa Tasmania is presented by Pure Tasmania