Targa Tasmania 2009 – That’ll buff right out

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 an unforgiving beast, as these images show.

It doesn’t matter how much your car costs, by entering an event like Targa Tasmania you simply have to be prepared for the worst to happen.

The problem with that is being witness to some gorgeous metal being pushed into shapes we hoped never existed. Take the stunning Lotus Cortina, for example. Or the beautiful yellow BMW 2002. Which, incidentally, crashed out in 2008 as well—on the first corner of the Prologue in George Town—poor buggers.

The Ferrari featured below, amazingly, suffered only cosmetic damage, as severe as it may have looked, and the car was seen on the road after the event being driven back to Devonport for the ferry ride home.

The profile of driver, too, was no barrier, with eight-time winner Jim Richards crashing his car in a Targa Tasmania rally for the first time. Suitably, Richards’ candid self-appraisal was refreshing to hear.

“I turned into the corner in second gear, got to the middle of the corner and the car understeered on the gravel and mud that was on the road. But hey, 200 other cars got around the corner without hitting the bank so I was obviously going a fraction too fast,” he said.

Some raw TV news footage from the final day can also been seen below, which includes the sorry sight of Kevin Weeks’ Lambo in the bushes.

Fortunately, for all the twisted metal, no competitors suffered serious injuries during the event.

Eagle eyed AUSmotive readers will notice a MINI Cooper S shown in the images below. You’ll be able to read more on that later when my service crew report for 2009 is posted in the coming days.