MOTORSPORT: Big anniversary for Targa Tasmania's golden boys

There may never have been a more competitive racer in Australia than Jim Richards, but Targa Tasmania is now about more than the competition to 'Richo'.

Richards and his loyal co-driver Barry Oliver have won the island state's week-long tarmac rally eight times and this week they're taking part for the 25th time – once again in a Porsche, just like the previous 24 occasions.

While they would be delighted to add a ninth victory in a new Porsche 911 GT3 RS, Richards says that – at 69 – winning is no longer everything to him.

"The fact that we've won Targa Tasmania eight times is a nice record to have, but we're not trying to win the event outright anymore," Richards said.

"We don't press on as hard as we once did. If we manage to finish in the top half dozen at the end of the event, then that's a great result.

"It's now much more about driving a nice car and enjoying the experience.

"It's not just about the competition, but about having a nice meal at the end of each day and catching up with other friends along the way.

"We both have our wives with us on the event, and it's a great week.

"We'll compare our stage times to last year, and if we're faster then that's great. It means we're enjoying it and having fun.

"The weather can play some tricks in Targa, but you just have to get out of bed each morning and drive to whatever conditions you're dealt.

"That's part of the fun of Targa, and certainly one of the things that makes it so tough.

"I'm looking forward to returning to the PDK transmission.

"I had competed with manual transmissions up until the Cayman S in 2014, which was my first non-manual rally or race car... and I loved it.

"The Cayman GT4 we campaigned for the last couple of years was a manual, so I'm really looking forward to returning to the PDK."

Richards has always loved everything about motorsport, in all its forms, and driven in most of them – and can be well satisfied with his record. It includes seven Bathurst 1000 victories, four Australian Touring Car Championship titles, four Nations Cup championships, five Grand Prix Rally wins and Touring Car Masters titles in 2010 and 2013.

Richards is Victorian-based, but originally from New Zealand. His 72-year-old co-driver is also a long-time Supercars circuit commentator, from Launceston. The two speak for the overwhelming majority of the field – across its eight classes – when they say there is a lot of enjoyment apart from driving each day's Targa stages.

The 26th Targa Tasmania (Richards and Oliver missed one because of other commitments, which is why this year is their 'silver anniversary') starts in Launceston today – in very wet conditions. While the field is not quite as big as for last year's 25th edition, there are close to 135 cars competing – with as many again "touring".

The first four days of competition are in the north of the state, with the rally making its way to Strahan on the west coast on Thursday, then through Queenstown and over the famous Mt Arrowsmith on Friday en route to Hobart. Saturday morning there are the last of the 35 stages south of the capital before the lunchtime finish back on the Hobart waterfront.

Richards and Oliver are nationally synonymous with Targa, but to the locals five-time Tasmanian winners, Jason White and co-driver uncle John White, are the crew to beat. However, the defending champions this year are Victorians Matt Close and Cameron Reeves.

Targa organisers don't make such a fuss of the overall winners now, trying to 'share the love' across the classes, but Close and Reeves were fastest over the entire event last year by six minutes and 41 seconds in a 2015 Porsche GT3.

Like Richards and Oliver, they have stepped into a new, lighter and faster Porsche 911 GT3 RS this time. Its four-litre, six-cylinder engine produces 368kW (500 horsepower) – 18kW (25hp) more than they had last year. It also has modifications to the drivetrain and aerodynamics and comes in 10kg lighter.

However, Close and Reeves had had little opportunity to get acquainted with the new machine before it was shipped across Bass Strait.

Close said he was "in a very steep learning curve" with the car, having driven only 250km on highways after taking delivery on April 3, while Reeves had barely seen it.

The main threats to Close and Reeves are the Whites and last year's runners-up, Michael Pritchard and Gary Mourant, in Dodge Vipers and 2009 winners Tony Quinn and Naomi Tillett – that time in a Nissan GT-R, but this time in a Porsche GT3 RS too.

However, Close has identified Peter Nunn and Keith Johnstone as 'a smoky' in a Porsche Cayman GTS. "They will be hard to match with the softer rubber they can run," Close said.

The Classic GT class is always popular and enthralling, with the battle set to be between the winners of the past two years.

Queenslanders Jon and Gina Siddons are defending their crown in a 1970 Datsun 240Z, while the 2015 victors, South Australians Craig Haysman and Julie Boorman, are the challengers in their 1979 Triumph TR7 V8.

While the Triumph has the power advantage, the 240Z has the more nimble handling for Tasmania's awesome windy roads.

Jon Siddons says Targa is "our Bathurst".

"And you obviously have to be there on the final day to have any chance of winning," he said.

"We're down on power to Craig's TR7, but if it's wet – which it often is – then that evens things up a lot.

"Our car is really well balanced and easy on tyre wear."

Other favourites for silverware in the classics are West Australian Michael Bray and Victorian Michael Downey in V8 Holden Toranas, Targa veteran Barry Faux in his 1985 Mazda RX7, David Young, Mark Clair and Stewart McAuley in Porsche 911s and Wayne Pfingst in his 1971 Holden Torana GTR XU-4.
Molly at the double in ARC defence
Reigning Australian rally champion Molly Taylor has stepped up her title defence, winning both heats of the weekend's Forest Rally in south-west WA in her Subaru Impreza WRX STI.

Coffs Harbour driver Nathan Quinn has taken the championship lead despite what he called "a pretty bad weekend" in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX.

Quinn was fortunate that the more fancied Eli Evans and Harry Bates had even worse weekends.

Evans crashed the Peugeot 208 Maxi he was driving into a concrete water tank.

"It sent the car sideways through the air and it rolled three times," Evans said. He is currently working on a MINI Cooper AP4 car for future rounds.

Bates' Toyota Corolla S2000 in which he became the youngest ARC round winner at the opening event of this year's championship, the Eureka Rally at Ballarat, lost all power late in the second heat in the forests around Nannup, inland from Busselton.

However, Bates – who had been a close (3.1 seconds) runner-up to Taylor in the first heat – and Evans scrambled to the event's final control point to salvage some championship points.

Brad Markovic and co-driver Toni Feaver wound up third outright for the weekend and won both heats of the WA championship.

Taylor, whose co-driver is former WA police officer Bill Hayes, said the Forest Rally was her favourite and the outcome "a perfect result".

She felt that she and Hayes had gone to "a new level", thanks also to the reliability of her Les Walkden-built Production Rally Car class WRX.

Quinn said a podium had seemed a distant proposition after Friday's night start under lights on the Busselton foreshore. But third in heat one and second in heat two gave him second outright for the weekend, as well as the championship lead. Taylor was fifth after the Eureka Rally.

"It's cool that I get to be on the top of the list for the time being, but the championship is like a rally and you can see what happened to Harry and Eli here," Quinn said.

"It's not necessarily about leading at one point in the event, it's about leading at the end of the year, so I'm going to take it with a grain of salt for the time being.

"Hopefully we can get some more sponsorship support and I'll be able to get to Canberra [for round three, the National Capital Rally, on May 26-28]."
Ekstrom stays on top in world rallycross
Defending world rallycross champion Mattias Ekstrom has now won both rounds of this year's World RX, repeating his Barcelona success at Montalegre, Portugal in his Audi.

The Swede, arguably the world's most versatile racer, this time beat France's nine-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb, driving a Peugeot.

However, another Swede, Johan Kristofferson, is closest to Ekstrom in the championship, 14 points behind, after third place in his Volkswagen.

Kristofferson's team boss Petter Solberg had a puncture in the Montalegre final. Norway's 2014 and '15 World RX champion finished sixth but his outfit is on top of the teams championship.

Ekstrom said that next up, on the first weekend of May, he will race in both the World RX and the DTM – the German touring car championship, in which he is a multiple champion – at Hockenheim.