Taking it to the streets

A cool-headed and controlled lap of the streets of George Town by driver Mike Sinclair and co-driver Bill Hayes has moved the Team Skoda carsales Octavia RS into second position in the Showroom category.

The Prologue, which sets the starting order of the rally, seems an innocuous enough stage but appearances are deceptive.

With just over 5km of round-the-houses racing it's all over in minutes, but the tricky course can easily bring teams underdone with its mix of gutters, off-camber corners, surface changes and safety bollards -- usually in the form of large tractor tyres just where they don't want them.

It's Day Zero, and times count but it's not the day to try and win the rally so drivers must used controlled aggression to set their best time, without bending their cars. And that's exactly what Sinclair did.

"It's only Prologue, there are another five long days of competition to go so we certainly didn't go out to blaze around and break records," Sinclair said.

"We were well within our limits and we'll progressively ramp up our attack over the 'proper' stages."

Still, Sinclair's lap in the front-wheel drive Octavia RS was only seconds off the quickest time set in Showroom by experienced young rally star Brendan Reeves, driving a Mazda3 MPS which is smaller and more powerful than the Skoda.

Reigning champion Jason White, in a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera, set the fastest time on the Prologue. White was 5sec quicker than Tony Quinn in his Nissan GT-R even though his time was 4sec slower than last year's Outright mark.

The autumn weather was perfect for the Prologue event -- probably the most relaxed day on Targa. Crews and spectators mingled in the park among millions of dollars worth of high-performance -- and some more sedate -- machinery before and after the stage.

For the next few days the rally loops in and out of Launceston. Today's stage starts with the official send-off in Civic Square then the action begins at Lilydale; the first of eight competitive stages.

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