MOTORSPORT: Targa Great Barrier Reef course revealed

The course for the new tarmac rally in the Queensland tropics, which had been a closely-guarded secret, has finally been revealed with the event now less than two months away.

Targa Great Barrier Reef will be held from Friday, August 31, until Sunday, September 2 and motoring.com.au will be there.

The first Targa event to be held in Queensland, it will be based at Cairns and take the field of more than 200 cars to other key centres in the Far North.

It has been based on Targa Tasmania, the world’s largest tarmac rally that has been held in the island state every year since 1992.

That event and Tasmania’s shorter Targa North-West earlier this year were the first two rounds of the 2018 CAMS Australian Targa Championship.

Targa Great Barrier Reef is round three and Victoria’s Targa High Country on November 9-11 will be the fourth and final round.

The championship has several classes for modern and classic cars.

It is being led overall by Tasmanian-based South Australian Steve Glenney and co-driver Andy Sarandis, from SA, in a GT4 class 2015 Subaru WRX STI from Paul Stokell, the Tasmanian now based in Queensland, and fellow Queenslander Erin Kelly in a GT2 class 2014 Lotus Exige S. The full standings can be seen here.

Organisers say the Targa Great Barrier Reef course “not only gives competitors the challenges they expect from a Targa event but also takes the field of exotic and classic cars to a number of key locations in Far North Queensland”.

“It will represent a cavalcade of motoring history from early classics right through to the latest exotic supercars,” today’s announcement says.

“And for people who live in the region, it will be a very rare opportunity to see this many rare cars up close, right outside their homes in some cases.”

The field will tackle 18 Targa stages over more than 900km of roads.

The event will get underway outside the Reef Hotel Casino early on the Friday, with cars leaving the official start from 7.20am through to 9.30am and heading to the opening stage at Greenhill.

From there they will tackle the Gillies Range before a visit to Atherton from 9.20am to noon, with the public able to see the cars up close for the first time there.

They will then come back down Gillies Range and head to Lake Morris Road for the first run up to Copperlode Dam. After reaching the top, they will come back down and return to the Cairns Convention Centre for the first overnight stop.

On the Saturday the field will leave the Convention Centre from 6.45am to 8.30am and head to stages at Upper Barron, Lake Eacham and Glen Allyn, with a stop in Malanda for people to see the cars from 9.20am to 12.30pm.

The cars will then tackle Glen Allyn and Lake Eacham in the reverse direction, before heading to Lake Morris Road again for a second run up and down that stretch of road.

On the Sunday the cars will leave the Convention Centre from 6.45am to 8.30am and head straight to the Kuranda Range, before stages at Malanda, Moregatta and Millaa Millaa and on to Ravenshoe to showcase the cars to the community again between 10.45am and 1.30pm.

The field will then return to Cairns, via the Millaa Millaa and Moregatta stages in the reverse direction, before crossing the finish line in the heart of Cairns from 2.30pm.

Organisers promise “one of the world’s biggest champagne showers” at 5:00pm with all of 48 of the event’s competition winners celebrating on stage together.