One of the great things about being involved in the MINI community is meeting some pretty cool people. A few weeks ago I was asked to join Andrew Robinson’s team at the 2008 Targa Tasmania. He’s a privateer running a 2003 MINI Cooper S and has competed in the last few Targa Tasmanias. I’ll be the gopher in the support crew and am really looking forward to being involved. The event starts on Tuesday 15 April and Robbo is currently on his way to Launceston via the Spirit of Tasmania. A mate and I from Canberra will arrive in Tasmania tomorrow morning and begin our preparations with a chance to recce a few stages tomorrow afternoon.
Robbo’s car has undergone a bit of a rebuild lately, to put it mildly, and by all accounts it is putting out some really good power. Targa will no doubt prove to be a great test for his faithful MINI. The car has been prepped by Peak Performance and one of their mechanics will also be joining our crew which will be a big help should we need to get our hands dirty. Here’s hoping young Dave doesn’t have much work to do!
With thanks to Tim from Perfect Prints you can see a few images of Robbo’s car from last year’s Targa Tasmania. The MINI will be sporting the same number for 2008. So, wish us luck and keep an eye on the results to see how our hard working MINI Cooper S fares. And I’ll be back online in a week and a bit with updates and photos.
9 replies on “AUSmotive heads to Targa Tasmania”
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Good luck guys!
A quick update from the end of Leg Two.
We arrived in Launceston on Sunday morning and completed a couple of days recce checking some of the new stages for the Rally.
Day Zero at Georgetown, Prologue day, went without a hitch. Sadly the same can’t be said for the bright yellow 2002 which crashed out of the rally on the first serious corner. Ouch!
Leg One saw us meet with the guys at the Sheffield lunch stop … mmm, fish paste sandwich. Fortunately, that was the only disappointment of the day. Service crew don’t actually get to see much action, so it was nice to see the MINI take off at the Frankford stage, even if it was a fleeting visit before returning to Rally HQ at Launceston’s Silverdome.
Leg Two was a good day, for the most part. We caught up with the lads at the St Helen’s lunch break, just, and also the completion of the Elephant’s Pass stage. Robbo was very happy with that run and was eager to show us the in car footage when we got back to our hotel–it looked sensational. The only dampener on the day was in the last stage through the streets of Longford. For some unexplained reason the car went into Limp Mode and the short town stage had to be completed in first gear at snail’s pace. Still, no major damage was done to either the car or the chances of collecting a Targa Plate. A quick trip to a very helpful Launceston BMW where our on-hand mechanic Dave was able to use the dealer’s diagnostic tools to clear a raft of fault codes and the car was fixed and is now safely inside the Silverdome ready for tomorrow’s action.
More updates if I can get further access, otherwise keep an eye on the Targa website and look for car 923 in the Modern category.
Cheers Liam
Hey Liam, thanks for the updates.
Hope the faults codes don’t keep returning ???
Will look forward to catching up hearing all about it.
Cheers
Paul
Nice work guys. I saw Robbo’s name on some Targa results yesterday. Hopefully you get it across the line in good time and have some fun along the way 😀
Robbo and Lima, watch the road! Don’t post while you are driving! Lol. Good luck guys.
Wayne
PS: Lima, where is the pink GT-R???
Good luck with the final stages Robbo and Johnno (Navigator)
Liam, Andrew and Dave: Keep the up the great support
Thanks for the well wishes, but I’m home early. 🙁
Robbo and John are fine, but the MINI has a broken exhaust. It will be an easy fix, it just happened at a bad time/location and made repair not really a suitable option.
More detail in the next few days.
PS: Wayne, not sure what happened to the R35 GT-R, I only saw it at the George Town prologue, but it hadn’t been appearing in results for at least a couple of days. Oddly enough, it’s actually quite hard finding out news when you’re there and net access is limited.
Sorry to hear about Robbo’s DNF. Judging by the stage results on http://www.rallyresults.com.au/targa2008/ , you guys were doing pretty well until early in Leg 4, leading the CM32 category/class (only competition was a Tiburon), and in the middle of the “regular” cars (excluding the WRXs, Evos, Porsches, Lambos). Shame it ended in tears.