Multiple Targa Tasmania champions Jason and John White hold a 16-second lead in the overall battle following an eventful opening day of the 2017 event that took the field out to St Helens and back to Launceston.
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Driving their 2016 Dodge Viper ACR Extreme, the Whites took well to the damp conditions to build a lead over Michael Pritchard (Dodge) and Gary Mourant with 2016 champions Matt Close and Cameron Reeves (Porsche GT3) in third place overall.
A couple of cars rolled over on The Sideling to delay the first competitive stage by more than an hour, with the field covering 73.30 competitive kilometres on the first of six days. The Whites won two of the day’s stages, but showed why they are five-time winners with a masterful display of consistency and speed.
“We’re really happy with the result today – it’s actually the first time I’ve driven the Dodge in the wet on these tyres, and they’re something else – they’re quite phenomenal,” Jason said.
“It took a little while to adjust my driving style and the commitment levels, but we’ve had a couple of dry stages and Matt Close has taken back time on us in those. We could probably do that sort of pace in the dry too, but it’s not sustainable, so we’re praying for a bit more rain. We made our tyre choice based on expecting at least two days of wet for Targa this year.”
The top three crews in the overall competition also hold those placings in the GT2 competition, while fourth-placed Ben Manion is the clear leader in GT4.
In a category dominated so far by Subaru WRXs, Manion holds the lead over Trevor Macleod with Angus Kennard the first non-Subaru in third, driving a Nissan GTR.
The classic GT leader Jon Siddins in his 1970 Datsun 240Z not only holds a 1:30-minute advantage, but sits sixth overall against much newer cars.
Veterans Peter and Sari Ullrich dominated in the classic handicap and hold a commanding 1:47-minute lead in their 1963 Jensen CV8. Just eight seconds separates David Gilliver’s 1979 Ferrari 308 GTS and Richard Woodward’s 1969 Holden Monaro GTS for second and third.
Other competition leaders are Adam Kaplan (2004 BMW M3 CSL) in early modern, Jeff Morton (2017 Lotus Exige) in GT Sports Trophy, and Darryl Marshall (2002 Ford Falcon Ute) in the speed limited TSD Trophy class.
Targa moves to George Town on Tuesday for the prolog.
OVERALL TOP 5
- Jason White/John White
- Michael Pritchard/Gary Mourant +16s
- Matt Close/Cameron Reeves +37s
- Paul Stokell/Jenny Cole +1m14s
- Ben Manion/Bernie Webb +1m22s