Targa High Country 2019
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas…
Australia isn't exactly known for its snow, only the Alpine regions in VIC/NSW and parts of TAS get regular seasonal snow and even those still need the snow machines to keep pumping to extend the ski season. So it seems completely reasonable to host a Tarmac Rally in an actual ski resort as long as you don't plonk it in the middle of winter. It seems the best outcome for all parties really, the resorts get an influx of visitors to stay and consume services and the rally crews get access to some world class twisty roads and the whole thing is centrally located at the Mount Buller village.
From a competitor's position it's a great place to have a rally, most of the teams and crews stay on the mountain at various chalets, there is plenty to see and do with restaurants and bars open for the week and even the village supermarket is open. Plus the views are awesome and it's never too hot.
In the last six years at Buller we have twice had a little snow, either on the ground left over from the season or a few hours of light snow in the lead up, just enough to make a few snowballs. But this year was a little different, the forecast was for very cold (-8) nights and snow across the weekend and the weather gods didn't disappoint with snow falling during the week in the lead up. But even then the snow was mostly gone in the morning so a 6:00am wakeup on Friday morning for the first leg greeted us with no snow on the ground even if the clouds looked heavy.
But day one doesn't start early and we had a 10:30 call-up time so even when the snow started to fall around 7:00am we never really considered that it would be an issue. Our hosts (who obviously know better) had warned us the night before that it was coming and relocated our parking spot to the lower garage in the complex with direct roadway access rather than up the back lane. Fortuitous move as while the snow kept on falling and our laneway access disappeared under a thick blanket the snowploughs cleared the main roads but not our laneway. So we dodged a bullet.
But as our start time neared we started hearing stories of those who didn't make it off the mountain, the Porsche Tour cars that normally leave before we even get up were still lining the roadside, going nowhere. The Jag in our garage made a tentative run down the street before beating a hasty retreat back inside hoping for a clearer path. The snow was building up again on the roads and we tip-toed down towards the official start we became stuck in a line of 2WD cars unable to make it up the last hill. This took a while but we were relieved to see plenty of others in the same boat so surely we would get out eventually and not miss anything. The snowplows eventually came and cleared a path and everyone headed off. Except now the Datsun wouldn't start. Genius here had turned it off rather than let it idle for ever and now the bastard wouldn’t start and everyone else had left…
At this point I am reminded that we operate without a service crew so navigator has to make the trek back to the accommodation to grab a booster pack (just a few hundred meters in the snow) while driver asks around for a jump. Two Porsche tour followers later and the car is running but navigator is still MIA and the car won’t make it back up the hill to pick her up. But arrive she does and we set off at (walking) pace to make the official start – which has finished. No matter, we press on to the start of SS1 and arrive to a short queue of similarly tardy comp cars only to be told the road closure has expired and the sweep had already left. So we missed the first stage. While SS1 is officially a warm up stage with a generous base time it is still timed and penalties applied so we were very happy when SS1 was in fact excluded from the results. No harm, no foul.
Of course once we move off the mountain and head out to the day's stages the snow is replaced by rain and damp roads but nobody is complaining.
A small error in preparation sees the fuel gauge dangerously low in the morning transport (remember no service crew) and in the last run up Devils River before lunch the low fuel light comes on and the engine coughs… but we make it to lunch and refuel. That's enough drama for today thanks.
Lunch break gives us time to check the results so far and catch up with other competitors, in the Classic GT class we have already lost one competitor with the Reynolds Commodore striking trouble before the start and getting stranded on the mountain so it looks like we are running second in a Holden sandwich with Downey/Acker way out in front and Bourke/Browne trading stage times with us.
The small entry list is a little worrying, last year we had eight starters and this year only four so I guess we'll have to wait and see what the new technical regulations for 2020 can do to stimulate growth in the category.
Word at lunchtime is also coming through to say that the snow is preventing any vehicle movement on the mountain so the last stage of the day being the run up Mt Buller is cancelled and the organisers are going to leave all the comp cars partway down the mountain overnight and shuttle the crews up to the village. Yay, bus trip!
The snow has clearly made a mess of the event planning but the Targa staff and volunteers do an amazing job of contingency planning (at short notice) to minimise the disruption and in the end just this single stage is cancelled for the weekend.
So day one finishes with all the cars parked halfway down the mountain in the snow and for us a bit of a trek from the village to our accommodation – I don’t recommend race boots for snow hikes.
Day two then is more of the same, thick snow on the Mountain means catching a lift down to the village (our support car is well and truly snowed in) and a bus trip down to the cars where we were greeted with a snowman on the Datsun. Leg two sees the field head North towards Whitfield and then finishes with a street stage around Mansfield. The roads are dryer today but there are still some seriously slippery patches and this is evident in the number of off road incidences today. We see a few on the way out and then late in the day we get word of a serious incident after lunch with significant damage and some injuries. The crew should make a full recovery but it's a reminder that this can be a dangerous sport.
We end the day comfortably in 2nd place with Downey way out in front and a 1.5 min margin over Bourke in 3rd plus it's great so see Reynolds overcome the day one glitches and make it out for day two.
Day three is the big one, while only four stages today they are all long and it's a real test of car and crew with the Jamieson and Eildon stages at 48km and 39km long followed up by the final 18km run up Mount Buller to the finish.
We start the day with a stage win down Marimba before Downey again smashes us on Jamieson and Reynolds has failed to start the day so at Lunch we are now 5min 29 behind and 2min 44 ahead of Bourke who is battling some car issues.
On the return run through Eildon we pass the stricken Bourke/Browne car on the side of the road, their technical trouble finally stopping the car so now it's a two horse race (or one Tortoise and one Hare to be honest)
Eildon is an amazing stage, at 38Km long it's a 25 minute slog with endless stretches of linked corners, changing surfaces and in the middle a couple of km of almost dead straight sections where the car can have its head and push for vmax which for us is about 205km/h. On the second of these sections the shift into 5th gear is met with a hideous grinding of gears and the realisation that the gearbox has failed spectacularly. For a few seconds this sinks in and I try 4th gear – and it's fine!
So we press on gingerly. After a few kays it's apparent that 1st through 4th are all OK and while there's no extra noises in the box we push on back to full pace for the remainder of the stage (another 25km!) just avoiding 5th gear.
At time control at the end of stage we stop for the marshals and then move off. Except we don’t, the gearbox has bound up and won't move. Try 2nd and it eventually clunks off the line.
On the long transport back we realise it's fine once moving but hard to get off the line so we plan to wait back at the end of the queue at Mt Buller and take it easy up the hill to avoid holding anyone up. A quick scan of the results show we beat Downey by 1min 29 in Eildon so he's obviously got some issues as well, we're down to two runners and we're both limping.
At the Mt Buller start we drop back behind the field to be the final starter only to get stopped on the line by the official who thinks our noisy gearbox is going to strand us on the mountain, after a short discussion we take the start anyway.
The final run up Mt Buller should be the best stage of the event but for now we just need to limp it home, coast in the high speed sections at the bottom and minimise the gearshifts where possible. At the top the weather has again closed in, visibility is very poor and the road is slippery but at least the plows have cleared the snow. It's a slow run but we make it. In fact we won the stage again and beat Downey by 50sec so he's obviously hurting more than us but he still wins the event by over 3 minutes. Smashed us in fact.
2nd in Classic GT and 35th outright from 90 starters is pretty good for our old Datsun with a gear shortage so we are relieved and ecstatic to make the podium. Time for beers and schnitty and bed.
Targa High Country is probably our favourite event. There is a reason we’ve come six times already, the great roads and spectacular scenery, the communal aspect of everyone staying at the same location, the burgers at the Whitty Café…. but mostly it's the challenge. It's a long and tough event and about the most we could expect to do without taking a service crew. The fact we can do it all ourselves is very rewarding and it helps that, save for one engine failure, we have made the podium every time. It's a very rewarding event and we'll keep coming back.
But for now we have a gearbox to fix before Bathurst.
