TMR MAINTAINS TARMAC 1-2

Evans and Millar continue top form at Targa Wrest Point.

TMR Australia cars maintain a solid 1-2 in the 2010 Australian Tarmac Championship after last weekend’s Targa Wrest Point, following a stunning duel for the Showroom class win.

Held around Hobart over 200km of competitive Targa stages, TMR Lancer Evolution Xs continued their pace-setting form, with the Yokohama Advan Evo X Club Spec of Dean Evans/Simone Bachmann and the Hyperactive Designs Evo X RS of Scott Millar/Chris Dean fighting for the win in the Showroom class.

After an event-long duel with the TMR-built Evo 9 RS of Tony Warren/Natasha Deniese, Evans won six of the 11 stages but eventually finished second in Showroom by just 20 seconds. “We’re stoked with that,” explained Evans, who was running the SST dual-clutch gearbox. “We drove it as hard as we could, and the Club Spec was faultless. The paddle-shift gearbox may not be the first ’box choice for motorsport, but I just love it! We know there’s a lot more potential in the car, so though we just missed the win, we know there’s more speed to come.” Evans/Bachmann finished 13th outright from the entire field of 150 cars, and maintain their lead in the 2010 Australian Tarmac Championship.

Millar/Dean’s Hyperactive Designs Evo X RS finished a solid 3rd in Showroom (22nd outright), after setting a brace of fast times throughout the weekend and finishing almost six minutes ahead of fourth place, the Queensland team holding second in the championship.

Proving the versatility of the Evo X and TMR’s tuning, the Rallimax Evo X of Max Williams/Bruce Bush finished a strong 10th in Modern, also running the dual-clutch SST gearbox.

TMR’s next outing is in two weekends to defend its back-to-back victories at the Bathurst 12 Hour on Feb 12-14, before heading to round three of the ATC at the Lake Mountain Sprint, Victoria, on March 20-21.

Photos by Joel Strickland