We are lucky enough to squeeze two tarmac rally events in each year, Targa High Country in Victoria and the Adelaide Rally in South Australia. Unfortunately they both fall in November so we have a busy month (with Challenge Bathurst also in the mix) and it puts a bit of pressure on to have the car reliable enough to get through them all.

Got off to a shakey start this year. The day before leaving for Mansfield the tow car threw a belt - the result of it not being put back on properly when the air con compressor was replaced for the long drive. This set our prep back a few hours but got moving at the scheduled time the following morning after a rescue tow and a dash to the parts store. Glad it happened the day before and not halfway to Melbourne…

Targa High Country is based at Mt Buller in the snow country and while the skiing season is over it’s still pretty cold at this time of year and we have even had snow during the rally weekend one year. It means keeping a watching eye on the weather app and making sure the heater is working (priorities) but it also brings some extra work in recce as the road conditions can change quite quickly in the wet.

Still, our tyre choice is fixed in advanced so we just make the best of it. Recce this year was in fact wet and reports on the Wednesday before the start suggested there is also snow on the mountain this year and it’s below zero. It’s going to be a cold one.

Classic GT (outright) has a strong field this year with 12 entrants including at least two previous winners spanning V8’s, sixes, fours and even a rotary. We have the oldest car in the field but think we can probably make the top 5 if things go our way although a podium would probably require someone else to have a problem. We have had a pretty close run in previous events with Bourke/Brown in a Torana and McAuley/Etienne in a Porsche so these two will probably be our closest competition.

This year the event is quite different to previous years with the traditional Day 1 stages towards Merton making way instead for a second run on the Day 3 stages out towards Eildon. This probably suits us as the Merton stages were quite rough and certainly weren’t our favourites while the Jamieson roads are a lot of fun.

Day 1 saw us end up 4th with a best stage result of 3rd on Mt Terrible and while we’re 1.5 min behind Bray/Bray in 3rd we do have a 17sec margin over McAuley/Etienne in the 911 in 5th. Meanwhile the Torana of Bourke/Brown struck trouble with the valve train later in the day and are making an early retirement and won’t start Day 2. Kaplan/Penney have a strong lead over Downey/VanDenAkker and the Bray’s, the Targa Championship is on the line with Bray only needing to finish to take the trophy.

Day 2 is the run north to Whitfield and this year there are an additional two stages on the route with the three stages after Mimimbah all repeated in reverse after lunch (you must grab a burger at the Whitty Cafe). These roads are fast and flowing and a real contrast to the other days and we take 4th on most of the stages and finish the day on the streets of Mansfield still in 4th place. While the gap ahead to the Brays in 3rd has blown out to almost two and a half minutes we have also grown our lead over Mcauley to almost a minute heading to the last day which is a nice buffer and should be enough to let us hold our position.

The Mansfield street stage is a a real fan favourite and as usual there are crowds on all the corners and people watching from every vantage point or just sitting on their front porch! I’m not a huge fan of the street stages as the potential for damage on all the gutters is quite high and as nice as it would be to put on a slide show for the crowd the risk is just too high. The day ends with all the cars lined up for Targafest in the main street before a late convoy in the dark back up the mountain to Mt Buller.

Day three heads to Jamieson / Eildon and while there are only four stages today they include the 40+ km long runs through the Jamieson and Eildon stages before the final run up the Mt Buller road to the finish. On the Jamieson run the brake pedal is getting long and the brakes are feeling tired but we are still holding station. On the return run through Eildon after lunch we really start to notice the brakes aren’t pulling up properly with a very long pedal and starting to lock the rears on some corners. It’s apparent there is a problem (perhaps just boiled the fluid) so we have to take real care on the stops although thankfully the tight and twisty roads mean there aren’t too many high speed big stops required.

At the end of the stage we contemplate our options. We don’t have a service crew and only limited tools in the car so we can’t give them a quick bleed although we could perhaps ask for some help from another crew. On the long transport back to the last stage of the day the brake pedal comes back a bit and I at least think there is enough pedal to get safely up the hill if we take it easy and we now have over two minutes gap to 4th but 3rd is right out of reach so we agree to go ahead with the last stage at a safe pace and at least just get to the finish.

The first km or so of Mt Buller is open and fast, up around 180km in our car and despite having some brakes at the start it’s clear very quickly that we have no front brakes and this means a very careful run will be required.

We take it easy and of course get passed half way up the hill and while we can push on in some areas the are spots where I’m on the handbrake trying to stop the car and the tight first gear hairpins are a challenge but despite all this we are soon at the top although we’re a minute and a half slower than our Friday time and comfortably slowest of our class but I don’t care, we’re going to make the finish.

The finish at Mt Buller is right in the heart of the village square right in front of the clock tower and the tight left hand hairpin at the flying finish is a great spectator spot and very inviting for drivers to put on a show with a slide over the finish. As we approach the finish I get the instruction “just take this easy” but the hoon in me says “give it some” and before you know it enthusiasm has exceeded talent and we have spun right at the finish. Stalled, facing the wrong way (with no brakes) and with the next car already approaching I can see the flying finish boards only a meter or two behind us so the car is fired up, reverse selected and we make the finish - backwards over the line.

Crowd cheers, I’m embarrassed but who cares, we made the finish.

Park the car, quick change out of our race suits and we head back down to the square where the podium presentations and beers are. When the Classic GT podium starts, the announcer says “I hope they are here because they won’t know this….” and then calls our names for 3rd. WTF. It turns out that the Brays have had a failure on the last stage and are a DNF so we get promoted to 3rd. Unbelievable, but we’ll take it.

Downey wins after Kaplan lost a bunch of time today with a tyre failure but Bray has done enough to wrap up the Championship so really everybody is happy.

Despite our brake issues we have had another great event, we have some work to do on the road getting the brakes repaired before Challenge Bathurst next weekend but that’s another adventure.

2018 Targa High Country