THE TARGA VCC TIME TRIAL A BEGINNER’S GUIDE

At New Zealand Classic Car we’ve long been fans of the Targa, even sponsoring it in earlier years.

It gives enthusiastic drivers in New Zealand a rare opportunity to really drive some of the country’s famously entertaining tarmac roads by applying the traditional off-road rally ‘special stage’ approach — cars competing on closed roads, setting off one at a time at specific intervals. Knowing someone isn’t coming the other way around the next bend utterly transforms the driving experience.

This is what makes the Targa so special. The organisers work with hundreds of council employees and local landowners each year to close sections of sealed, tarmac roads for the event. Compared with off-road rallying, this opens an opportunity to far more drivers, with fewer specialised skills and equipment. That being said, the top teams take it very seriously.

Classic sports cars used to make up a significant portion of the Targa fleet but one of the Targa regulars, Rod Corbett, noticed that in recent years they had largely disappeared from the ranks. Some might see it as natural attrition or even progress, but Rod, who is also a member of the Vintage Car Club (VCC), and who competed in a TR3, wasn’t about to let them go.

So, working with the VCC and the Targa organiser, Ultimate Rally Group’s managing director Peter Martin, Rod came up with a new category aimed specifically at enticing owners of classic cars back. The VCC’s tried and trusted time trial competition formula gives classic owners real competition, while the target time for each stage could be set in the classic car sweet spot. It would give the drivers a challenging workout without — theoretically, anyway — pushing their older cars to breaking point.

Requiring entrants to join the VCC would bring in new members and, as the threshold for qualifying cars would be set at just 30 years of age, it would open the door to newer models and younger owners every year.

Getting three race categories and hundreds of individual starts away on up to five special stages every day is no cakewalk

It was a genius plan and it attracted around 20 cars in its first running in the South Island in 2018. The proof of the concept was shown by the fact that most of the available slots for the 2019 event were quickly filled by the same entrants wanting another go, even though this one would be in the North Island.

For the first time in 2022, a new two-day category joined the five-day entrants, giving more people the chance to sample the formula.

You’d have to say it was a roaring success. Rod reports that more than 50 per cent of entrants this year joined the VCC to enter. Original registrations were more than double the previous tally, although Covid took out eight teams by the time 28 entrants lined up at the start in New Plymouth. Another nine teams turned up for the final two days.

Getting three race categories and hundreds of individual starts away on up to five special stages every day is no cakewalk, but Peter Martin is enthusiastic about the new category.

“It takes the Targa right back to the origins of the Targa Florio,