Tag Archives: Targa Tasmania

Targa Tasmania 2022

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Targa Tasmania 2022

 

Targa Tasmania 2022 was a special year, as the 30th Anniversary of the Ultimate Tarmac Rally, which also corresponded with Adams 14th and Lee’s 11th Targa, the 3rd year with both Adam and Lee competing together in the same car with the ultimate aim of taking the top step of the podium.

Before the race began, the team at Redback Racing hosted a number of sponsors at the Symons plains raceway, just outside Launceston. This gave a great opportunity for Bahco Sponsors, friends and families to get up close and personal with the BMW M3 CSL, including laps of the challenging supercars track. It also provided a great warm up event for Adam to get some time behind the wheel so the team could start the 30th running of Targa prep’d and ready in the best position to take on the most challenging of tarmac rallies!

However, it was very unfortunate that while the team were ready, on the very first stage the car has a computer related issues, which put the engine and gearbox into “Limp Mode” meaning the car would only run labouring and not attacking the first stage as the team would have hoped and lead to the team losing some 45 seconds on the first stage and putting them way down the position order. 

The issue was initially resolved, which led to the crew having two solid stages to close the gap that had been caused from the first stage, but unfortunately the issue returned. They had however learnt to fully reset the car and computer, which they had to do mid stage on the side of the road, again costing more time.

Root cause for the issue was still not understood but a tactical work around, resetting the car before each stage to give it a chance to complete the whole stage, hoping that it did not reoccur during the stage… which worked as the team went on to take stage win the next 3 stages and closed the prior lost time to put team Redback Racing into to top position for the Early modern category.

Its with great sadness that unfortunately a competitor lost their life in a fatal accident, which after the loss of lives in 2021 the Targa leadership team made the call at the end of day 2 to downgrade the rest of the event from competition to drive through.  This led to Team Redback Racing to an Early Modern Category & Class win by the most slender of lead, 1 second! 

It was never a way the team wanted Adam & Lee to share their first collective Targa Tasmania win and everyone at Redback Racing would like to share their thoughts and prayers with the family of their former competitor.

The car was put on display with a local Mitre 10 dealership before being returned to NSW and the team will reset, resolve the issue that had occurred throughout the  event and the team look forward to coming back even stronger at our next event! 

Click here to view the gallery from Targa Tasmania 2022

 

 

 

 

 

Targa Tasmania 2021

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Targa Tasmania 2021

The team from Redbackracing again took on the challenge of Targa Tasmania in April of 2021, competing in the Dutton’s Garage Early Modern 2 wheel drive category. This year competing in the BMW M3 CSL that was built and prepared through the COVID 19 Pandemic, which caused its challenges, but the car was setup for the tough challenge that was to be faced while racing throughout Tasmania in the worlds longest Tarmac Rally.

The car ran really well through the first two days, as the crew go to grips with the new power and control changes since stepping into the BMW. Day 3 the service team were called into action with overnight work to repair suspension lines that had worn against the rear wheels. While a challenge to get fixed with no garages open, the car was back racing the next morning.

Conditions throughout the event were very mixed with rain showing an apperance every day throughout. The latter stage of the rally of the final two days, unfortunately led to the passing of three fellow competitors. Shane Navin passed away on the fifth day while tackling the Mt Arrowsmith stage. While Leigh Mundy and former Redbackracing team member Dennis Neagle passed away on the Cygnet stage of Day 6. Our thoughts and prayers remain with Shane, Leigh and Dennis’s family, while time passes memories will not fade of our fellow competitors, Rest in Peace.

The BMW finised the race in fine form, having spent the majority of the race tusseling with Henry and Henry in their Porsche Cayman for third spot. In the final stages throughout Southern Tasmaina the BMW helped the crew get into 2nd spot, but unfortunately the stages were downgraded based on the accident that had occured, so the team finished in a very worth 3rd position, with the passing of the colleaugues there was not celebration or podium but instead all competitors spent time with each other and their familes.

An inquest was performed on Targa Tasmania and some further safety recommendations were put forward and the Targa leadership team have put these into place for all future Targa Events. With further COVID lockdowns all other events were delayed or could not be reached due to border crossings, so we await 2022 when Redbackracing will be back at Tackling Targa Tasmania 2022 – 30th Anniversary.

Click here to view the gallery from Targa Tasmania 2021

In Memory of Shane, Leigh and Dennis.

 

  

Targa Tasmania 2019, 1st & 2nd in Class, 5th & 6th in Category!

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Targa Tasmania 2019, 1st & 2nd in Class, 5th & 6th in Category!

The cars of Adam Spence & Lee Challoner-Miles, Andrew Bollom & Ryan Preston competed in this years Targa Tasmania 2019. The event known as the ultimate tarmac rally, lived up to its namesake this year, with weather conditions that would test the most experienced of drivers and navigators.

The first day of the six day competition, saw the crews test there cars on three stages North of Launceston as a shakedown and to set the starting order for the subsequent day with very little between the two RBR cars and the early front runners of the Early Modern category that the team were competing within.

As with previous years day two stages were based in the central northern area of Tasmania with the largest and last stage of the day Mountain Rolland providing a real chance to race the cars over a greater distance (27kms). Andrew & Ryan were edging out a lead over Adam & Lee by increasing their lead through each stage with just a few seconds separating the two RX8’s.

Day three was when the weather turned on the competitors, torrential rain set in and made the racing conditions challenging due to the amount of rain fall but a number of the stages reduced visibility through dense fog added to the level of difficulty of completing the stages while trying to compete with tough competition from other cars in the category. It was the Cethana stage where Adam & Lee took full advantage of their combined experience and Adam’s ability to still be very competitive in such challenging weather conditions, so much so they took a 1 min 38 second lead on their sister car of Andrew & Ryan and also were in the top rankings of all cars competing.

The forth and fifth days had similar conditions and the two redback racing cars would continue to drive hard and the time difference on each stage was between 1 and 5 seconds, showing how the freshly built RX8’s were a competitively built car and how when the cars were being driven to their best, could compete with cars ten times their value.

The final day of Targa Tasmania 2019 had the teams race around the Southern Hobart region, while Adam and Lee retained a 1 minute lead, the weather again caused havoc with changing conditions within stages, which continued to make such challenging conditions that competitors would make mistakes and unfortunately not complete the rally, this was not the case for the two redback racing RX8’s as Adam & Lee finished by winning their Class and coming 5th in the Early Modern category, Andrew and Ryan were not far behind finishing 2nd in class and 6th in category, with a gap of just 48 seconds separating the two, when considering the amount of distance they had both raced over the prior 6 days is testament to the sheer determination of both crews and the quality of the build of the two Mazda RX8’s.

The team would like to thank all of their sponsors who helped make this happen and fulfil an achievement of a two car team competing day in and day out throughout the beautiful Tasmania countryside and both being able to finish in the world’s longest tarmac rally.

 

Click here to view the photo gallery from the event.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Targa Mechanical Failure Frustrations

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Targa Mechanical Failure Frustrations

Targa Tasmania 2016 was an important milestone for the team.  It was Adam’s 10th Targa in a row and the 25th for the event as a whole.  It was also Ross Hynd’s first with the team.  The team spent many hours prior to the event testing and preparing the car for the event.

 

The first day of the event started extremely well with Adam and Ross tied in the lead of the GT4 category after missing a win in the street stage by 2 tenths of a second!

 

Days 2 and 3 saw the pairing finding their feet but always running in the top 5 or 6 cars consistently which landed them in 5th place.  Then on day 4 with some tuning changed done to the car the team start challenging for stage wins with a couple of 2nd’s and clawing towards 4th place with still around 50% of racing distance still in front of them.

 

Unfortunately, a podium finish was not going to happen at this event with the team halfway through a stage the gearbox failed and went into limp mode which meant the car was still mobile but not competitive in stages. With a lack of spares available in Tasmania for this specialized vehicle, it also meant a premature end to the event for the team.

 

A devastating result for the team that had so much bad luck previously and who were so well positioned at this event.

 

That being said there are many positive outcomes from this event that the team will bring into their next rally.

 

Finally, a big thank you to Ross Hynd who traveled from Scotland and swapped his normal seat in a WRC Hyundai in the Scottish Rally Championship to the teams GTR in Tasmania and proved more than capable of the switch.

 

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Irvine rally ace Ross Hynd set to join Redbackracing for Targa Tasmania 2016

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Irvine rally ace Ross Hynd set to join Redbackracing for Targa Tasmania 2016

As the team complete final preparations for Targa Tasmania 2016 starting in just over one week, news has broken in the UK that Irvine rally ace Ross Hynd is set to Join Adam Spence in the Redbackracing Nissan GTR R35.

Ross spoke to Scottish tabloid newspaper Daily record of his excitement in competing in the world’s longest tarmac rally.

Click here to read the full article.

We will be sharing updates in the lead up to Targa and throughout the event so stay tuned at redbackracing.com.au

 

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Targa Tasmania 2015

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Targa Tasmania 2015

Targa Tasmania was definitely an event of highs and lows for the whole team. The highs were; the pace we had from the start of the event, in only the second running of the car and also our debut of the CR9 Carbon Revolution 20 inch wheels. They really transformed the car and especially on some of bumpy roads throughout Tasmania, the wheels made a significant performance improvement.

Another high was working with such a great team that worked like clockwork!

Obviously, it was a huge disappointment to leave the event midway through. A tough pill to swallow with everything running so well to that point. We have learn’t from that experience and will come back stronger with an aim to have the same pace coupled with greater consistency. We will work hard over the coming months to repair our car and team Redbackracing will be back stronger than ever!

Watch this space!

Click here to view the pictures from Targa Tasmania 2015

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Redback Racing to make history in Targa Tasmania 2015!

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Redback Racing to make history in Targa Tasmania 2015!

On Monday the 27th of April 2015, Adam Spence, Erin Kelly and the team at Redback Racing will enter the record books, being the first race team to run their Nissan R35 GTR with a one piece, full carbon fibre wheel set. These wheels, produced by Carbon Revolution of Geelong, Australia, are the world’s first aftermarket carbon fibre automotive wheel.

The Redback Racing team have been working along side the Australian owned and operated Carbon Revolution on the fitment of a wheel suitable for their GTR.

Adam Spence, team principle, said “We did some early testing on the wheels and you could feel the difference immediately, completely changing the dynamics of the car. Acceleration and breaking performances were improved over our old aluminium wheels due to dramatic weight savings, the Carbon Revolution CR-9 has improved the overall wheel and tyre combination, which makes such a difference to the cars handling”

“We know we still have more to learn about the GTR and what it is capable of and after a solid 5th outright at Targa High Country in November last year, which was our first outing in the car, we know that running such a great product will help us gain those precious seconds needed on every stage to be competitive again this year”.

Brett Gass, Executive Director of Carbon Revolution said “Our partnership with Redback Racing has been a tremendous project for Carbon Revolution.  We have been looking for the opportunity to work with an innovative racing team to prove our wheel technology in the harshest conditions possible. We are looking forward to supporting Redback Racing as they strive for great success in this world famous race”

The team at Redback Racing would once again like to take this opportunity to thank all of their support team and our major sponsors Vivant, Corporate Impressions Australia, Cyara, Hi-Tec Batteries, Motul as well as Oracle Creative, Cartek, JustJap, Freem, Styling Spacing Spaces, Renotech and Nuance.

 

CARBON REVOLUTION

Geelong, Australia, based Carbon Revolution has designed, engineered and manufactures the world’s first carbon fibre automotive wheel.  The Carbon Revolution team includes former senior engineers and manufacturing executives from global automakers and suppliers, R&D specialists from the aircraft industry, industrial composites manufacturing specialists and numerous PhDs with materials and structures expertise.  Carbon Revolution has utilised this team’s depth of experience and knowledge to develop proprietary and patented processes that are literally revolutionising the wheel industry.

 

Carbon Revolution, as a global leader in composite technology, has key technology development partnerships with Deakin University and RMIT in Australia, which are both recognised in their respective fields of materials sciences and aerospace technology. The company has met global automaker standards for component supply to ensure a world-class approach to quality and process control. Carbon Revolution’s automotive carbon fiber wheel technology is proven to improve performance and efficiency and the company is working with key partners to develop aerospace, military and industrial vehicle applications to take vehicle performance and efficiency to new levels.  “PERFORMANCE IS EVERYTHING.  EFFICIENCY IS EVERYTHING ELSE.”

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Targa Tasmania 2014 – Day Five The Finish Line

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Targa Tasmania 2014 – Day Five The Finish Line

After 5 days of Tarmac Rallying throughout Tasmania, the team crossed the finish line on Sunday afternoon. The showroom category finished with Andrew and Lee coming in 1st place, Adam and Erin in 3rd and a Mini cooper works finishing in 2nd place.

Day 5 had very similar conditions to that of day 4 with rain on all but the last stage making it a very challenging last day to the event. The Megane’s handled the conditions very well including the grueling Mount Arrowsmith stage which is nearly 60km’s long, especially in such wet conditions, the cars and teams did really well not to join the numerous other competitors whom encountered accidents or mechanical failure.

Andrew and Lee also were able to finish the race in the top 20 outright which is a fantastic result when looking at the cars in and around that position.

The championship gala dinner is on Monday night, we will put up another post after that to wrap up the 2013/2014 championship and include some more photos in our gallery section in the website, but here’s a few pictures from the final day of Targa Tasmamia 2014 until that time.

 

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Targa Tasmania 2014 – Day Four

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Targa Tasmania 2014 – Day Four

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.