Targa Tasmania; Day Three review

A pair of Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggeras leads this year's running of Targa Tasmania after South Australian Kevin Weeks and Tasmanian Jason White both enjoyed a strong performance through Friday's stages.

The pair grabbed the lead from the Nissan GT-R of Tony Quinn, but he remains in contention with two days running remaining. But the biggest shock of the day was the deminse of Jim Richards.

Eight-time Targa winner Richards and navigator Barry Oliver hit a bank during the day and the hit caused too much damage to the pair's Porsche 911 GT2 for them to continue. It was Richard's first accident in Targa competition and leaves the leading trio to fight out for the win without pressure from the event's biggest star.

Richards was his typical straightforward self when explaining the accident.

"We hit a bank on a little second gear corner and broke the radiator," Richards said.

"The radiator's right at the front of the Porsche, so unfortunately we just rolled down the road and parked it an SOS point and waited for the truck to arrive to pick it up.

"These things happen, and they happen to other drivers. It's just a consequence of going in a rally; every now and then you make a little blue and hit something, I suppose."

"I turned into the corner in second gear, got to the middle of the corner and the car understeered off on all the gravel and mud that was on the road. But hey, 200 other cars got around the corner without hitting the bank, so I was obviously going a fraction too fast," a philosophical Richards added.

"There's no excuses. The fact is that we hit the bank and no-one else did."

The Mazda Motorsport trio continues to impress with Brendan Reeves and Rick Bates still in contention for the Showroom class honours and Steve Glenney moving up the Modern leaderboard in his RX-8 SP.

Reeves put in a set of fastest stage times to strengthen his second position in class and move to 16th in Modern outright classification. The more experienced Bates used his wet weather skills during the damp morning stages to consolidate third position in the Showroom rankings.

Glenney continues to battle teething problems with his locally developed SP edition RX-8 but still managed to move to eighth position in his class.

"Tomorrow is undoubtedly the most challenging day of Targa Tasmania," said Mazda motorsport boss Allan Horsley.

"There are two stages over 30km; including Cethana, which many consider to be one of the greatest and most challenging tarmac rally stages in the world.

"Tomorrow Brendan, Rick and Steve all have one objective -- to get their cars safely to Strahan."

Saturday is the longest leg of the rally and the action will incorporate 141km of competitive stages on the run from Launceston to Strahan.

You can follow the Mazda team's progress at mazda.com.au

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