Targa Tasmania 2010 kicked off in earnest today with the first leg of the event taking place. Wet and wild conditions greeted the field and while most crews did manage to make it back to Launceston safely, some crews are already out of the rally. Fortunately there aren’t any reports of serious injury, despite some [...]

Skoda Australia’s wicked one-off creation, the Octavia RS-P, is all set to make its tarmac rally debut at Targa Tasmania which kicks off next week. The recipe is pretty simple, take one standard Octavia RS, turn up the boost of the 2.0 litre turbo, fiddle about with the intake and exhaust. This will see you [...]

Mazda Australia has just launched a competition offering free entry at the wheel of a 3 MPS at this year’s Targa Tasmania. You’ll need to check out the Mazda Motorsport website for full details, but, the deal is you and a mate get entry into the Targa Tour (Saturday 1 May – Sunday 2 May). [...]

This Sunday (14 July) at noon the Seven Network is showing a one hour highlights package of Targa Tasmania 2009. Make sure you catch the action and see just how Tony Quinn beat the field in his Nissan GT-R. Check your local guides for details.

This year marked my second trip to Targa Tasmania, so it was with some experience that I knew the excitement and anticipation of seeing the entire fleet of competition cars at Launceston prior to the event, would soon end in a twisted wreckage for some. Symbolising the loss of someone’s hopes and dreams. Motorsport is [...]

Service crew duties meant I wasn’t able to get the camera out during Leg 3, so the next suite of images are from the ‘Mt Black’ stage from Leg 4. This is when the rally heads down the west coast, leaving the Launceston base for an overnight stop in the picturesque village of Strahan. While [...]

These photos were taken on Leg 2 at the ‘Longford’ town stage. The 2.9km zig-zag street circuit gives spectators a chance to see the cars in action without the need to beat road closures. The town stages at Targa Tasmania have generous base times. This means the bulk of the field will usually ‘clean’ the [...]

This selection of photos was taken on day one at the ‘Merseylea’ stage, a 9.9km stretch south of Devonport. The fastest through this stage was Jason White in his 2007 Lamborghini Gallardo, but it was the Lambo of Kevin Weeks that stole the show with flames spewing out of the exhaust throughout the corner where [...]

The first hit out for Targa Tasmania competitors is the ‘Temco Prologue’, held on the streets of George Town. The stage itself doesn’t count towards the final placings, but effectively seeds the drivers by determining the starting order for the rest of the event. In order to help compress the field during the rally, thereby [...]

Tony Quinn (QLD) and Naomi Tillett (SA) in a 2008 Nissan GT-R have won this year’s Targa Tasmania. Quinn was at the pointy end of the field throughout the event, but he faced an eight second deficit to the 2007 Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera of Kevin Weeks (SA) leading into the final day. And what a [...]

AUSmotive will be making the trek to Tasmania this weekend as preparations for Targa Tasmania get into full swing. I will be returning to work as part of the service crew for two privateer entrants, Andrew Robinson (#923) and Stu Jones (#916). Here’s to a great rally for the guys, especially after Robbo’s disappointment last [...]

Dean Evans will be gladly flogging the bejeezus out of a Lotus Exige Cup 260 in the Targa Tasmania event later this month. With 192kW at their disposal, and just 890kg of car to move around it’s pretty safe to say Evans and co-driver Simone Bachmann have the ingredients to be at the pointy end [...]

Mazda Australia is planning one of its biggest and best assaults on Targa Tasmania yet. They have signed 2008 winner, South Australian Steve Glenney, and thrown him the keys to a 205kW turbocharged RX-8 SP. “I’m excited to be chosen by Mazda Motorsport to play a role in the development of the Mazda RX-8, and [...]

For my last post of the year, a quick reflection on my favourite stories from 2008. Getting a world exclusive on Top Gear filming in Vietnam was right up there—thanks to Andrew for giving me the scoop on that one, it has provided some nice traffic to the site, that’s for sure, with Jalopnik and [...]

An all expenses paid trip to participate in Targa Tasmania. Sounds good doesn’t it. What would I be driving? And could it compete with Gentleman Jim’s brand new Porsche GT2? Service crew … what do you mean service crew? Yes, the offer to take part in my first Targa Tasmania was not behind the wheel [...]