Targa High Country 2012
Big results for TMR at Targa High Country
TMR has come away from the second round of the 2012-13 Australian Targa Championship on a high after all six supported entries finished the gruelling Targa High Country, held near Mansfield, Victoria on November 9-11.
With perfect springtime weather throughout the weekend, the sinuous roads that make up the event- including the legendary Mount Buller stage which completes the rally- played host to 165 entries ranging from classic 1960s muscle cars to modern all-wheel drive weaponry.
TMR, regularly acknowledged as the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution tarmac rally specialists, focused their efforts on the 4WD Showroom class which included competition from other Evolutions as well as Subaru’s Impreza WRX STi and Volkswagen’s Golf R.
All four TMR-prepared Showroom 4WD Evolutions finished, taking four of the top seven places with an emphatic 1-2 finish for the TMR Evo X RS models of Tarmac/Hankook sponsored Dean Evans/Matthew Harriott and Hyperactive Designs’ Scott Millar/Christopher Dean.
Evans, who is defending his 4WD Showroom title, was an incredible fifth outright, mixing it with the less-restricted Modern vehicle class and the resident Nissan R35 GT-Rs and Porsche 911 GT2s. “We’ve moved to the Evo X RS model for this season, and it’s about 100kg lighter than the GSR it replaced,” he explained. “We have gained around a second per kilometre over last year and are managing the (hard-compound) tyres better. The car was great throughout, it was just a matter of keeping it neat and tidy and avoiding trouble.”
The Millar/Dean Evo X RS, finishing around two minutes ahead of the third-placed Subaru. “The car was faultless, but we chose to run with medium tyres all-around and they just couldn’t last the distance. We changed front to back for Day 2 and the morning was okay but by lunchtime we were back to conserving the gap to third place. We’re very happy with the TMR 1-2, and will make some setup changes for the next round to hopefully get closer to Dean,” said Scott.
In sixth spot came the Evo IX GSR of Michael Minshall/Kirrilee Gentleman with the Rallimax Evo X of Norm Sutton/Sue Hanley right behind in seventh.
TMR also prepared two Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Xs for the Modern category. Clinton Arentz along with co-driver Pete Burrey in the Winston Group Racing example continued to impress with a fine seventh in Modern and first Evo in class. Barrie and Jan Smith also realised a top-ten category finish with tenth place and second Evo in class in their V-Sport Australia-entered TMR Evo X.
“We’ve had a reasonably hassle-free weekend, with all the cars finishing and being very competitive,” said TMR boss Alan Heaphy. “For Dean to run so closely to the top Modern cars shows just how much performance we have unlocked in the TMR Showroom specification Evo X RS.”
The Australian Targa Championship now moves to its spiritual home in Tasmania for the third round of the championship, Targa Wrest Point on 2-3 February 2013.
