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

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

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.

 

IMG_1328

Redback Racing to make history in Targa Tasmania 2015!

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.”

r35

Targa Tasmania 2014 – Day Five The Finish Line

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.

 

TT14_Day5_7TT14_Day5_20 TT14_Day5_18 TT14_Day5_17 TT14_Day5_16

TT14_Day5_8

 

TT14_Day5_14 TT14_Day5_11 TT14_Day5_10 TT14_Day5_9 TT14_Day5_12 TT14_Day5_13 TT14_Day5_15 TT14_Day5_4 TT14_Day5_5 TT14_Day5_6 TT14_Day5_3 TT14_Day5_2 TT14_Day5_1

 

Targa Tasmania 2014 – Day Four

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.

Targa Tasmania 2014 – Day Three

Targa Tasmania 2014 – Day Three

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.

TT14_Day3_7 TT14_Day3_8 TT14_Day3_9 TT14_Day3_10 TT14_Day3_6 TT14_Day3_2 TT13_Day3_3

 

 

Targa Tasmania 2014 – Day Two

Targa Tasmania 2014 – Day Two

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.

TT14_Day2_4 TT14_Day2_5 TT14_Day2_2 TT14_Day2_3

Targa Tasmania – Day One

Targa Tasmania – Day One

The team from Redbackracing headed West today to the Central Western tablelands of Tasmania. Both cars were performing very well through the initial two stages. Moving into the longer more technical stages both Renaults were heading up the category with only seconds separating the times of the two cars.

At the sixth stage of the day – Merseylea, the two teams had interesting moments. With car 933 of Andrew and Lee entering the stage first they were aware of their sister car following the into the stage, they pushed the car through the stage and were twice on the wrong side of the edge. Once getting airborne at high speed (see the below video) and later into the stage coming off the tarmac into the gravel and grass. Having been through this the car still completed the stage. However car 922 of Adam and Erin entered the stage chasing after car 933, they too were pushing hard and on the same corner where Andrew and Lee left the tarmac, Adam and Erin did the exact same feat on the same corner however going a little further off course subsequently getting stuck.

As always the redbackracing service crew were on hand to get the car out and make minor repairs to get Adam and Erin back into the race for the last two stages of the day.

With Andrew and Lee in first place for Targa showroom and Adam and Erin still in a good position that they can build on over the next four days its going to continue to be an amazing event and live up its name as The Ultimate Tarmac Rally.

Click here to watch the Video : AB_LCM_Merseylea

 

TT14_Day1_1

 

TT14_Day1_2

 

Targa Tasmania Prologue – Day Zero

Targa Tasmania Prologue – Day Zero

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.

 

Prologue_2