Targa Rally - QTN '18
The @targaNewZealand rally went past the end of our road for one of the stages in this years race. I’m not a petrol head, however, I do have an appreciation of of a well built and driven car. There are corners, line choices and speed considerations, not so dissimilar from bikes really. Potentially the consequences could be more considerable.
I've driven this section many times and in my opinion, if you knew there was nobody coming it would be way more fun than it usually is. I thought they would fang it round this corner. Here we now have one major problem, I’ve got an expectation, this doesn’t usually end so well, yet so many times I keep telling myself that it will.
Having not spent much time investigating the format of the race, I really didn’t know how and when they were going to come past. The crown of neighbours gathered in this spot ushered ideas of categories and types of racing. We had a flurry of old classic cars giving it their best up this hill, which when viewed from the road side, all appeared to be driving very modestly with a great deal of caution, or the grunt was being pushed to the max.
The Targa Classic
As I hunted around the corners to find those elusive lines to capture the crazy drifting high speed action, the cars came by in odd bunches and times. None of which seemed to be too rowdy, the price tags of these vehicles appears to be having a reasonable affect upon the caution of the driver and co-driver. The lack of helmets seemed and odd choice to me as well, but a great indication that my expectations were being challenged.
As I nestled behind large trees and other places which allowed me a quick clear exit, just in case, I was alerted to an approaching car by the noise increasing from the distance. Potentially these corners look much more severe on the maps. A gossip strand may have leaked about the skippy, rumpled surface giving rise to a slight slide warning. Two crashed cars in the previous days were apparently not the norm and may well have been another influence of the driving.
On the whole, the roar of the approaching cars soon dissipated as the gears were dropped, acceleration giving way and caution being exceeded. As with most norms, there is most definitely the exception. It seemed to come from the cars of the 80’s, truly beautifully restored vehicles which sounded incredible which undoubtedly received enormous amounts of love from their driver owners.
The super cars, the ones with lottery win price tags, emitted some insane noises and explosions as the gears changed, demonstrating pretty high speed, but not so much in terms of style and looseness. By the time sweep drove by indicating the end of the racing on this section, I’d had my fill. A reminder of the fact that I’m not a petrol head at all, when’s the next DH race?