Targa Blog: Leg 2
From the very worst of conditions to the very best -- Targa Tasmania is a fickle beast. But the Apple Isle's famous tarmac road rally was at its picturesque best yesterday for Leg Two of the five-day classic. Taking in famous stages like The Sideling and Weldborough Pass, and the Longford street stage, day two of Targa heads east of Launceston to the coast and then south before looping back to Tasmania's second city.
The bright clear but cold conditions were welcomed by the entire field but no more so than by Team Skoda Carsales. If co-driver Justin Hunt and yours truly were to make any ground on the fast guys in our two-wheel drive Skoda Octavia RS-P, it'd be more likely to happen in good road conditions. With the exception of some damp sections on the first stage of the day, The Sideling, that's what we got.
And with our rubber working better, the Octavia's 2.0-litre turbo four was able to stretch its legs. On The Sideling we managed to top 195km/h and even the tighter, shorter stages like Ledgerwood saw us do better than 170km/h. And it wasn't just top-end that worked for us -- our pace across The Sideling saw us post a stage time fast enough to put us into the top half of the all-wheel drive and supercar populated Modern field -- 24th fastest, we were also again the fastest front-wheel drive.
Elephant Pass, a sinuous piece of road that joins St Marys with the coast, was a highlight for both Justin and myself -- fast, technical and great fun. One corner cut by yours truly during the stage mashed the car onto its bumps stops but the Skoda's nothing if not tough! Though our engineer Craig Tulloch waggled his finger and said don't do it again at last night's service, there was no damage. I expected to see a flattened rim and a dented rocker panel at least.
Our tyre choice (Targa's rules require you to choose upfront) turned out to be spot-on today. Looking skywards we're hoping for fine weather from here to Hobart on Sunday, but that's likely to be wishful thinking. The west coast of Tassie is our destination on Saturday night and the weather bureau's predicting showers. We'll have to grab as much time on our competitors on Friday and Saturday and hope for the best.
The RS-P is fitted with Volkswagen Audi Group's DSG twin-clutch gearbox. Great in normal sporting driving, it's proving to be a bit of challenge in full racing conditions.
The main hiccup is that even in manual mode it will change up automatically at redline. In rallying sometimes you just need to sit the car on redline for a few metres more before braking for a corner. This saves a change up and down right on the corner entrance, but it's not an option with the DSG as set-up in the Skoda. If memory serves, Audi's use of the same gearbox in its S3 and TTS is not so afflicted. We might have to look into a software change down the track.
One of the newest stages in Targa is a highlight of Leg Two. Rossarden is the east coast of Tassie's wild west town and sits in the middle of some spectacular scenery. A series of very, very fast crest and corners, the first half of the stage had me spooked frankly. Little wonder we lost time on this stage.
Thus at the end of the eight-stage Leg 2 we parked the Team Skoda Carsales Octavia at Launceston's Silverdome stadium in 28th place in the Modern category, but no longer the first front-wheel drive. The 12 seconds we lost to the Honda Integra Type R of Hooper/Hooper in the penultimate stage put us 7sec adrift.
It's still a heartening result. And with today's racing including some of our favourite stages, we're looking to get the time back.
Looking at Showroom class, our cumulative time would have us into the top five and keeping a bunch of all-wheel drives honest. Come Leg 3 and 4 we're keen to keep it that way...
From the left seat - Co-driver Justin Hunt:
Leg 2 was a great day in the Team Skoda Carsales Octavia RS-P. Really fun, fast and flowing stages in sunny and dry conditions let the Skoda shine.
Great levels of grip and very settled dynamics made the car a quick but engaging ride to be sitting in. When you deliver a stage on notes and your get it perfect (well, perfect enough for Mike not to know the difference) you certainly get a natural high.
On the Rossarden stage, however, our notes were simply not good enough. Towards the end of a very fast section with a series of '9' and '10' calls I was unsure of the call. Experience dictates that you go to the next recognisable or dangerous corner. This I did well and we were back on track very quickly. Still not a nice experience -- especially at such high speeds.
When we set about Targa 2010 we decided to purchase pacenotes. This is not something we will do again. The driver and co driver should always design, write and 'own' their own notes...
The longest day of competition is Leg 3. Some great stages in a stunning area of Tasmania and I am looking forward to it.
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