Five-time Targa Tasmania winner Jason White showed his class on Wednesday, extending his overall lead to 60 seconds in his Dodge Viper ACR Extreme.
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On the third anniversary of his father, Dennis, passing away, White was determined to push hard and increase his lead on roads between Launceston and Burnie.
Despite suffering a broken differential at George Town on Tuesday, White and co-driver John White now look well on track for a sixth victory.
“Today was a bit harder on tyre wear than we really wanted, but we figured we had to push on to stay in touch,” Jason said.
“We just wanted to hold position, but I think we’ve managed to gain a bit of time here and there. Today’s been a really good day,” he added.
Reigning champion Matt Close has moved into second place in his new Porsche GT3 and is 42 seconds ahead of Michael Pritchard’s Dodge Viper, who lost time.
Jon Siddins in his 1970 Datsun 240Z, was fourth overall until the final stage of day three, but dropped time and slipped to seventh place.
The Porsche GT4 of Tim Hendy took over fourth place, ahead of the nimble Lotus Exige of Paul Stokell.
The event’s longest leg saw crews tackle seven stages, covering 133.48 competitive kilometres. Ben Manion started leading the GT4 competition in his Subaru, but a punctured tyre on the long Cethana stage to hand the lead to Angus Kennard in a Nissan GTR.
Manion dropped to more than nine minutes behind Kennard, who leads by nearly 2:30 over Josh Hilton’s similar Nissan.
The classic GT category was once again dominated by Siddins and now holds a 1:36 advantage over Mick Downey (Holden Torana) and former winner Craig Haysman (Triumph TR7 V8).
“I’m amazed we’re going as well as we are,” Siddins said.
Peter and Sari Ullrich have put their stamp on the classic handicap class and hold a commanding 4:25 lead in their 1963 Jensen CV8.
The battle for second is much closer between Richard Woodward’s 1969 Holden Monaro GTS and David Gilliver’s 1979 Ferrari 308 GTS.
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.
The field leaves Burnie and heads down the West Coast to Strahan via a further seven stages on day four, including Hellyer Gorge.
OVERALL TOP 5
- Jason White/John White
- Matt Close/Cameron Reeves +1m00s
- Michael Pritchard/Gary Mourant +1m42s
- Tim Hendy/Julie Winton-Monet +4m43s
- Paul Stokell/Jenny Cole +4m46s