MOTORSPORT: Targa Adelaide axed

FIVE EXTRA STAGES FOR VICTORIA’S TARGA HIGH COUNTRY IN NOVEMBER
It’s good and bad news on the Australian tarmac rallying front.

First, the bad news.

Targa Adelaide, scheduled for September, has been cancelled because the new organiser has found the Adelaide Hills Council’s requirements too onerous.

The good news for tarmac rally competitors, however, is that Victoria’s Targa High Country in November will have five extra stages without extending the event’s timeframe.

Both these events have formed in recent years, along with the long-established Targa Tasmania and the newer and shorter Targa Wrest Point, the Australian Targa Championship. Targa rallying is modeled on famous old European motoring events – Italy’s Targa Florio and Mille Miglia and France’s Coupe des Alpes and Tour de Corse.

Targa Australia Pty Ltd took over the running of the Australian Targa Championship at the start of this year from multi-national sports marketing company Octagon Pty Ltd.

Targa Australia event director Mark Perry has announced the postponement of Targa Adelaide and the changes to Targa High Country in a circular to regular tarmac rallying competitors.

“We have been working hard to secure a viable and workable future for Targa Adelaide in operating the event mostly within the Adelaide Hills Council under their new events policy, but we have decided that running an event under this policy will be very difficult for any promoter of an event requiring road closures,” Perry said.

“Targa Adelaide will be postponed for this year to give us a suitable amount of time to discuss our options with a highly-supportive Events South Australia.

“We are hopeful that we can reinvigorate the event for 2015, as without the roads in the Adelaide Hills there are simply not enough roads of suitable length and challenge outside of this region to run an event worthy of the Targa name.

Perry said the council’s events policy had “made the event unviable at this point in time”.

The onerous conditions quoted by Perry include:
>> A minimum six-month approval process that includes two months of direct consultation with affected residents;
>> A minimum of 80 per cent resident approval on closed road sections (100 per cent approval preferred);
>> Approval will only be given to each piece of road once in a 15-month period, therefore every two years in Targa Adelaide’s case.

“These onerous requirements mean that an annual event in Adelaide cannot be delivered effectively. Bouncing from one year to the next hoping you have an event is not the best way forward for anyone in the Targa family when we could be spending our time making our other Targa events bigger and better, all with long-term contracts and approvals already in place,” Perry stated.

“Point three means that signature stages will be lost every second year and there is simply not enough suitable road to run two completely different courses. Not even Tasmania can provide two distinct and different courses,” he opined.

However, Perry had “a brighter note” on Victoria’s Targa High Country, scheduled for November 7-9.

“In recognition of this year’s fifth anniversary running of Targa High Country we will be adding five brand new stages to this year’s event,” Perry said.

The new stages will be run on Friday and will take the total competitive stage number to 21 -- over 270 competitive kilometers.

Entries for Targa High Country – in and around Mansfield and up Mt Buller – are open now and close on June 30.

Perry expanded on the tarmac rallying business scenario in a report on the Australian Targa Championship website.

“We are a new business that needs to ensure the business model we go forward with can be sustained in fairness to all involved,” Perry said.

“There is no doubt that these are still difficult financial times, and our events represent a discretionary spend for our customers.

“The previous owners expanded the business quickly from one event to four. Because this happened through a period of economic downturn total numbers involved with the sport didn’t grow, which meant basically the same numbers were spread more thinly.

“We are, of course, excited about the future of our Targa events, but we need to spend this year examining our operations and developing a sustainable plan going forward. We need to build from a strong foundation.

“Targa Adelaide is the newest event, it’s the least developed in our business and, therefore, represents the greatest challenge to us in the short term.

“It is also a time of change in Adelaide. The Adelaide Hills Council has a new events policy, which requires a longer and far more onerous approval process, and this will take some time for us to work through with them to achieve a long-term plan that benefits all stakeholders.

“Given everything we’ve taken on as a new business, already with two successful events run in the first five months of 2014 [Targa Wrest Point and Targa Tasmania], it became clear this new six-month approval timeline was unachievable for us to plan with certainty for this September.

“We have also run out of time to apply for Events South Australia funding for this year due to our busy schedule. The final year of the four-year funding contract with Octagon was not transferred to us in the sale, and without this funding the event is unviable at a level worthy of the world-famous Targa brand.

“We have a good close working relationship with Events South Australia and we will continue to work with them to explore options to ensure a successful event for South Australia in 2015.

“We know South Australians, like all Australians, love their motorsport and Targa Australia wants to be part of that going forward, while ensuring that we always put on events that meet the highest international standards that our competitors, sponsors and stakeholders have come to expect from the Targa brand,” Perry stated.