New-look Targa Rotorua Event Is Earlier This Year

EVENT PREVIEW
 
New-look Targa Rotorua Event Is Earlier This Year
 
There's both a new look and new date for the Targa Rotorua tarmac motor rally this year, the popular now three-day event set to run - a month earlier than usual - from Friday May 10 to Sunday May 12.
 
For the five years up until 2011 Targa Rotorua was run as a two-day event on Queen's Birthday weekend. Last year, however, it was run the weekend after to avoid clashing with Gypsy Day (the day dairy farms change hands and farmers and share milkers shift their herds) and this year it has been brought forward as part of a major re-shuffle of the three-event Targa calendar.
 
As part of that re-shuffle the two-day Targa Bambina event run out of Auckland in March was replaced by a new single-day Targa Rallysprint event in Waiuku, Targa Rotorua gets a new date and an extra day and the Targa New Zealand event in late October and early November will be run over four rather than five days.
 
The reason?
 
"Time is the big issue these days," says Event Director Peter Martin."Our competitors tell us they still love our events. And they still want to do them. It's just for more and more, getting the time to be able to do them, and do them properly, is the problem."
 
By bringing the date of Targa Rotorua forward, and adding a couple of competitive stages on the Friday - a day up until now reserved for documentation and scrutineering - Martin says that there are a number of benefits
 
"For a start we give everyone involved a little bit more time between our two main events, Targa Rotorua and Targa New Zealand. By running the event in May rather than June we also get an extra hour of daylight, plus the greater likelihood of more settled weather. And because everyone was going to be in town on Friday anyway it's not going to cost anyone any more to do a couple of extra stages."
 
Those stages are over the Manawahe/Braemar road east of Rotorua with a service stop at Edgecumbe in-between. Once they have run through the stage a second time competitors return to the parc ferme on the Rotorua Village Green opposite event HQ at the Novotel Rotorua hotel for a car wash and show 'n shine event.
 
Saturday sees a return to the popular Waikiti and Ngakuru stages south of Rotorua in the morning, a lunch and service stop at Tokoroa then four stages in the south-west Waikato before a return to Rotorua in the afternoon.
 
On Sunday the field first heads north for the Hamurana stage at the northern end of Lake Rotorua then back to the Waikato for stages near Matamata in the morning and Cambridge in the afternoon before returning - via Paradise Valley near Ngongotaha - to the finish line at the Novotel Rotorua around 5.00pm. 
 
This year's event comprises 353 kms of closed road special stages ranging in length from the 7.13 kms of Paradise Valley to the 26 kms of  the Temiro/Buckland stage east of Cambridge.
 
It has attracted just on 60 entries across the three - Allcomers 4WD, Instra.com Modern 2WD and Metalman Classic 2WD - competition classes and 17 for the associated but non-competitive Targa Tour.
 
Sharing joint favourite status heading into the event are two-time and defending Targa Rotorua event winner Glen Inkster and his co-driver Spencer Winn in their new Ecolight Mitsubishi Evo8 and five-time Targa New Zealand winner Tony Quinn and his co-driver Naomi Tillett in Quinn's latest Darrell-Lea confectionary-sponsored Nissan GT-R35.
 
As well as a new format and date this year's Targa Rotorua event also has a new charity partner, Kids In Cars. As part of their involvement with the Targa organisation volunteers from Kids In Cars will be providing activities and raising funds for children's charities at this and subsequent events.
 
The 2013 Targa Rotorua event is organised and will be run with the support of sponsors Britz, NZ Classic Car magazine, Ecolight, Federal motorsport tyres, Instra Corporation, Metalman, Mobil1, TeamTalk, Trackit, VTNZ and Woolrest Biomag.
 
More information including an entry list and stage maps is available in the latest issue of New Zealand Classic Car magazine.
 

Two-time and defending Targa Rotorua title-holders Glenn Inkster and Spencer Winn (Ecolight Mitsubishi Evo) - joint favourites for this year's Targa Rotorua event. Photo credit: Fast Company/GroundSky Photography

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