TARGA: Is motorsport at risk?

COMMENT

On top of three fatalities in 2021, the tragic death of a competitor this year and last weekend’s decision of Motorsport Australia to suspend permits for Targa-style events means that the future of the event is uncertain.

Any sporting death is a tragedy. That someone’s life is taken while pursuing their passion does not change the fact that a life has been lost. But equally it seems undeniably cruel that their death could negatively impact a sport and pastime to which they clearly have a significant commitment.

TT30 was my eighth Targa. The opportunity came almost too late. It meant a relatively rushed preparation, but with support from Duttons and Targa itself, co-driver Julia Barkley and yours truly, plus teammates Grant Denyer and Ben Searcy, we made the start.

And we were looking forward to a competitive run in the GT Production class. And potentially nipping at the heels of the fastest GT Outright cars.

Alas, that wasn’t to be. As most of you will know, the competition section of TT30 was called after just the first full day of stages. In slippery conditions on the Mount Roland stage, Tony Seymour was fatally injured in a single-vehicle incident. Tony was laid to rest last week. To his friends and family we again send our sincere condolences.

I write this as a big fan of Targa – with acknowledged bias.

Thanks to its location, complexity, structure and the number of closed-road stages and kilometres driven, Targa Tasmania is literally a unique event. It is also uniquely challenging as even shorter stages can deliver wildly varying road conditions.

On the longer stages crews literally drive across mountains and while you may not get four seasons in a stage, you can certainly get two or three.

To be quick across Targa’s six days you need a car and crew that is more than capable. To be competitive, the level of human and machine needs to be significantly higher than most would credit.

Yes, there are crews that roll through Targa with a fun-first approach, but at the pointy end of all the competitive classes, the effort and expertise is impressive.

And at pace, thanks to the nature of tarmac rallying, the stakes are high.

The parallels with the Isle of Man aren’t lost on me, but to be frank they’re academic. This form of motorsport is significantly different from TT racing, as it is from both gravel rallying and circuit racing.

Yet it does combine aspects of the latter – the challenge and complexity of real-world roads; and the speed that modern vehicle and tyre technology can generate.

Targa has changed for the better across my experience (my first was in 2006). It’s become more regulated and better run.

In the wake of the 2021 event and fatalities, Targa organisers, authorities and four-wheeled motorsport’s governing body Motorsport Australia conducted a comprehensive review of the event and the sport of tarmac rallying.

The result was more than 20 recommendations across aspects of the organisation, driver licensing, tyre and vehicle regulations – even the structure of the event itself. Insomuch as it was within the power of Targa Tasmania itself, all of the changes were implemented, at least in part for 2022.

In some cases, these were part of stepped evolution. In others, the effects were immediate. A great example of the latter was the 30-plus restricted time zones across the course. Most, if not all, were positioned to address high-risk sections of some of Targa’s most iconic stages.

Other changes more closely aligned competitive stage operations to more traditional rally formats. For example, enforcing end of stage Stop Points to ensure that cars were both electronically and visually accounted for on longer stages.

The changes were in the main positive. Additional onus was put on competitive crews as well as the race officials. The added organisational rigour wasn’t lost on regulars – in and out of the cars.

But the best laid plans can still go awry in competitive motorsport.

It’s hard to get directly comparable injury and fatality stats across sports. But the August 2020 report on sport and recreation deaths from 2001-2017 compiled by the National Coronial Information System (ncis.org.au) give some context to the danger of motorsport.

According to the NCIS, in the period 2001-2017, a total of 3231 sport and recreational deaths were reported to coroners across Australia. Over two-thirds of the deaths (2164) were related to water and boating activities – one quarter of those (over 530!) attributable to fishing!

Drilling down further, wheeled activities accounted for 551 deaths, with almost three-quarters of those being pushbike or motorcycle related.

Motor car racing (as defined by the NCIS report and including rallying and the like) accounted for just 1.25 per cent of the fatalities over the 2001-2017 period. Tarmac rallying, a fraction of that fraction...

Which brings me to the point of this piece – a point that is both hard to write and to some may seem heartless.

Despite the measures put in place by Motorsport Australia and event organisers, the most recent loss of a competitor means there is a high probability that the 2022 Targa Tasmania will be the last with a true competition element.

If that proves to be the case, I believe it sets a dangerous precedent for motorsport generally and rallying in particular.

The circumstances of the death at the 2022 event are the subject of an inquest. That investigation will inform decisions. While we wait for that information, however, there has been a significant retreat of support for Targa competition and tarmac rallying as a whole.

With Australian society, sport and business ever more risk-averse, this is understandable. However, with the level of investigation already undertaken in 2021 and the substantive recommendations, you’d be forgiven for expecting motorsport’s governing body to robustly defend its findings and processes. The message that is now coming across is “back to the drawing board”.

Targa and tarmac rallying is a soft target right now. But it’s entirely foreseeable that the right (wrong?) series of unfortunate events could befall a round of Australian Rally Championship and result in what could easily (in the current climate) become an existential investigation.

Despite all of the efforts to make circuit racing safer, there too is risk. Talking of soft targets... Since COVID, circuit competitors have been doing the safety scrutineering of their own cars. Were the very worst to happen, how would a coroner react to that?

Here comes the cliché: motor racing is dangerous. It says so on the ticket and on the disclaimer. Targa has mourned the passing of six competitors in its 30-year history. Each of them was heartfelt by a constituency that is more family than hardened competitors.

Each of the six deaths was tragic to all involved. But equally each of the individuals were competing in Targa of their own volition. Each of them had acknowledged the risk and each of them had done so understanding that tarmac rallying has its own unique set of challenges.

Targa will defend its own patch up to a point – and it may well be the politics of road safety that determines the future of competitive tarmac rally stages.

But it’s also up to Motorsport Australia, and competitors and enthusiasts across all disciplines, to make sure their support for the event and motorsport more generally is heard.

Image credit: Other Side Productions

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