Day 4 was a challenging day for all of the Targa field, the conditions were cold, wet and very slippery. The test proved to be more and more difficult for some with more than 30 cars failing to complete all of the day’s stages. The two car team of Redback Racing survived the conditions with Andrew and Lee continuing to dominate the Showroom class. Adam and Erin, after suffering a significant time penalty on day one after an off are in third place. Tomorrow is the last day of the gruelling 5 day event where crews drive the 60km Mount Arrowsmith stage after having left the west coast of Tasmania en route to Hobart.
Day three of Targa Tasmania saw the team drive from Launceston up to the North Coast passed Devonport, then down the West coast to finish at Strahan, going through the Rinadena stage where Adam and Erin unfortunately finished their Targa Tasmania 2013. This year the day went well for both cars with Andrew and Lee increasing their lead in the Showroom catergory – their times would place them 4th in 4 wheel drive showroom and 7th in early modern, which is fantastic result thus far comparing the differences between the cars competing in these categories. Adam and Erin also had a good run through day three making up time on the 2nd placed Mini in the showroom category.
Both cars got through the day with little difficulty, Adam and Erin had a close encounter on a corner with the inside dirt bank, with Andrew and Lee also being chased by other competitors due to water pouring out of their car, thankfully it was only the windscreen washer bottle that had leaked (see photos).
The team will use Strahan as their base for two days with the teams again heading north up to Burnie tomorrow with some long and difficult stages which will again test their skills.
Today the roads of Targa Tasmania were all dry and unlike the drama’s of yesterday the service crew had a relatively quite day. The morning stages were a little slippery with the temperatures on the first few stages not going over 5 degrees celsius.
The final stages finished with the world famous Sidling stage which is one of the best tarmac rally stages in the world.
The team of Andrew and Lee now have a commanding lead in the category and Adam and Erin are trying to both nurse their car home after the damage yesterday as well as try their best at trying to bridge the gap to second position.
Tomorrow the circus which is Targa Tasmania will move from its base in Launceston to Strahan on the state’s West Coast where the crews will most likely have to compete in the first wet stages of the event.
Targa Tasmania 2014 got under way today with 2 prologue stages in Kayena and Georgetown, North of Launceston. With the sun shining but cool temperatures the teams were glad to get the campaign underway.
Car 933 of Andrew Bollom and Lee Challoner-Miles finished both stages on top with car 922 of Adam Spence and Erin Kelly 6.2 seconds behind in second place. The prologue times are used to set the start time for Day one of the rally and not used for the total rally time.
The course heads North tomorrow towards Devonport with 8 action packed stages.
Today we had the great opportunity to take our sponsors and guests out on Tasmania’s finest race track – Symmons Plains.
Targa Tasmania starts tomorrow (6th May) with 2 prologue events at Kayena and George Town, having some time in the car to perform a shakedown today before heading out on Tasmania’s roads gave the team a great chance to test and tweak the teams two Renault Megane’s.
Watch this space tomorrow for the first update from the “Ultimate Tarmac Rally”
Watch our progress Live throughout Targa Tasmania 2014
During Targa Tasmania you can watch our progress through each stage
Web :
Visit the rallysafe website by clicking here. At the top of the page you can select both the Redback Racing cars and during a stage it will show the car travelling through the stage. The redbackracing car numbers are 922 & 933.
Mobile :
IOS / Iphone / Ipad visit the app store and search for “Rallysafe”. Once you have the application open select the event, for example Targa Tasmania 2014.
Or click on the below to open in the Apple App Store
Android users can also search for rallysafe in the Google play store. Once you have the application open select the event, for example Targa Tasmania 2014.
Or click on the below to open in the Google Play Store
Over the past two days the two Redback teams have been busy refining their pace notes ready for Targa Tasmania in just under 10 days time. Both crews have been been using the Hema HN7 sat navs to navigate the fastest way around the Tasmanian West Coast and have been very impressed with their performance. Tomorrow they will make their way to Hobart going over the leg 5 stages which includes the 60km Mount Arrowsmith stage.
Hema helping our Service Crew navigate Tasmania and beyond
Redback Racing are extremely excited to announce a new sponsor – Hema.
We have been supplied with Hema’s HN7 Navigator units, that will be fitted in our service vehicles. Known throughout Australia for their outdoor explorer and four wheel driver navigation units. Over and above street based navigation the units also come with directions across dirt tracks and in excess of 6000 points of interest across Australia.
As always Redback Racing would like to thank all of our sponsors and look forward to continuing on with the successes we have seen throughout 2013 / 2014.
Redbackracing set out at the beginning of the season with a very aggressive goal of winning the 2wd Showroom Category in the Australian Targa Championship.
What has been completed so far is three wins and three second placed at every round of the championship. Emphasizing not only pace but reliability.
Team principle Adam Spence “I am so happy with what the whole team have been able to achieve this year, its such a team effort and every single one of the team have made their own and unique contribution that has lead to this, Targa Tas is the most challenging and to be treated with care, the prep and testing has gone well so far”
Justin Hocevar CEO Renault Australia: “On behalf of Renault Australia, I would like to extend our best wishes to Adam Spence and the team from RedBack Racing for the upcoming Targa Tasmania round. It has been fantastic to see the dominance of the award-winning Megane RS across the championship and we look forward to another podium finish for the team.”
The combination of Adam Spence and Erin Kelly will again be in car 922 and Andrew Bollom and Lee Challoner-Miles in car 933.
The team at Redback Racing would once again like to take this opportunity to thank all of their support team and our major sponsors RDA/EBC Brakes, Hi-Tec Batteries, Motul and Corporate Impressions Australia for supporting us and thus enabling us to compete. We would also like to thank Nuance Communications, Cyara, Dimension Data and PSS.
As Adam got more familiar with the Albert Park circuit the lap times got faster, with the quickest times set on the Saturday session just before the rain set in.
The F1 GP for all of those who saw it was a great event for all Australian’s, it was a fantastic way to open the new F1 season with all of the challenges of the new F1 car configuration and here’s hoping that Daniel does get to keep his first podium.
Our car 922 performed faultlessly throughout and was driven back to Sydney at the completion of the event! A big thank you to some special people that helped drive the car back.
Efforts now turn to the preparation of both cars for the final round of the championship, Targa Tasmania 2014 – the ultimate tarmac rally!
