Couple of photo's
Hi guys, well Targa is just around the corner (we leave in a couple of hours) and fingers crossed looks like both cars are ready to rock. I've had terrible pre-event preparation, on to my 4th engine, breaking pistons and all sorts of things, my 3rd gearbox, broke third gear then first, I've had old clutch plates that have catastrophically failed and brand new clutches that wouldn't disengage.
Looks like all that is behind me now, the brand new gear set seems to be doing it's thing and after making 1 more modification to the box in the form of a cap to fit over the hole in the bellhousing where the selector rods pass through, it looks like I have a completely oil tight bearbox !(and yes I did need to pull the gearbox out again to fit it, I think that makes number 15)
Engine is running well, thanks to the guys down at Historic and Vintage Restoration, thanks to the care taken during the run we managed to find what looks like could have been the culprit of all my engine woes without causing any damage. The resulting engine tune is brilliant to drive and even behaves itself around town, not bad considering its punching out around 150bhp at the rear wheels
The old mans car is also looking good, his engine is putting out a little less HP but has proved to be super reliable which is what you want. I couple of small issues with his new gearbox also, but nothing catastrophic so looking good.
This years event is a monster and the longest competition km ever and over half the course is new, which is good for us as it takes the advantage away from those guys that have been doing it for ever. With the extra km 2 full sets of tyres are now allowed to be used (increasing the cost of the event substaionally) so with only 1 service vehicle between us we are taking a trailer for the spare wheels and enough spares to pretty much make up a 3rd car! (engine, gearbox, diff ect.)
So now just been tidying the car up and been on a mission to get rid of any small rattles, which is harder than it sounds in a 40 year old car with no sound deadening and rock hard suspension, I'll try and make a few updates during the event but I'm also planning on updating a twtter account during the day so you can follow me on
colinbyrne105 or #targatasmania
the results are also updated very quickly at http://www.targa.org.au/Tasmania/targatasmania_home.html
We're in the early classic category
Couple of photo's
Good luck Colin - I for one will be following your progress - enjoy yourself and return safe!
Wow Colin well done with the preparation, taking a 105 on the targa is the stuff dreams are made of...looking forward to following your progress.
Thanks guys
All is going well both cars sailed through scruitineering and have their "ready to go" stickers, drivers briefing this afternoon and then the prologue tomorrow.
Weather is really nice down here for a change and looks like it will continue with very little rain, very unusual for Tassie this time of year! It will make tyre conservation critical.
Good luck Colin.
The cars look great. Have fun and will definetely be watching your progress.
Leg 1 update
Today was the first full day with 8 special stages. This morning was dry and little rain creep in at the end of the day. Both cars are running well with no real issues, an oil leak as developed on my gearbox but not anything to worry about. The car is performing really well the brakes, gearbox, engine and suspension are all working together great, its awesome fun to drive now. My Co-Pilot Paul Stoopman is doing a fantastic job with the pace notes and when we pulled into service tonight we discovered we are running 3rd place, so wrapped about that. We did really well in the last stage which was the only one that was completely wet, so we've put the softer tyres on and hoping for more rain.
looking forward to tomorrow (hopefully wet)!
Awesome!
Can I point out that I think Colin is being a bit modest. As best as I can tell from here http://www.rallyresults.com.au/targa/tt2012/index.asp
He is running 3rd in the Early Classic Handicap, he is also running first in class and a very impressive 12th in Outright Classic.
Keep it up mate, and keep it on the black stuff in the rain, think of the finish line......
You're praying for rain Colin!!? You must be a duck! - great work
Hi guys, well we got just enough rain and it paid off. We gained 30 sec off 2nd place so now we're only 11 sec away. The results also show we moved to 4th outright which is.awsome if its true. Our soft tyres are wearing well in the wet so we've left them on as forcast is for heavy rain tomorrow, which is a huge day. Both cars are running really well with no problems as of yet so everyone is haveing a great time, let's hope it continues
Saw the news clips tonight on the News. It certainly looked pretty wet. Some did well, others less so. I don't suppose you know what happened to Blakey in the red Lancia Beta by any chance, and whether or not they are still running. All I saw from the Targa website was that he had an off early in the day.
Unfortunately I don't think he'll be back in, car looked pretty badly damaged
Ouch! Bugger. Stay safe but have fun. Thanks for the feedback re Blakey
The Alfa boys are killing it in Targa. With the day not done yet, Colin is in 3rd in Early Classic and Ian Morris in his GTV6 has moved up to 2nd in Late Classic!
Talk about flying the Alfa flag !! and how........
Colin - What you are achieving in an under 2 litre car is outrageous !! Third in Early Classic ( with over 4 minutes to the guy behind !! ) & 7th outright in Classic is way up there in a list of achievements & hasn't been done for years !! Keep up the pressure & who knows where it will finish !! Just remember that some of the best stages are yet to come !!
Its also great to see the previous Targa winner Ian Morris hovering in 2nd place in late Classic behind a seriously fast & consistent Porsche ( & previous winner ) - driving brilliantly and being 11th outright !!
I can smell an Alfa on the podium - hopefully its at least 2 !!
Forza Alfa !!
Sorry for the slight deviation from Colin and Paul's Alfa. And Ian's too.
Small gracious humour by our club sponsor Les Smith, "putting it down to lack of driver talent"
There is more than just Colin and Ian in Alfas in the event. Ogg is in a 1750GTV, a couple of guys from our club (Geoff Storr and Steve Caplice (my mechanic) are going well in Geoff's Alfetta GTV and some other Tassie guys came 4th in their GTV6 in the Rookie Rally.
You are completely correct David - David Ogg ( a Targa legend ) is going great guns & continuing to knock off more powerful cars in the category - but unfortunately your other mates Geoff Storr & Steve Caplice may have had a setback today .......
Thanks Derek, yep I saw the comment on Targa live. A bugger for them, as Geoff's a solid driver, done heaps of Targas and his GTV was really well setup/presented. Hope the damage is not terminal.
Day 4 interviews (courtesy of Ben Sale), including David Ogg:
http://youtu.be/KI8ZJhPUgso
OH NO, looks like Colin has some dramas with the car ??? :o
Phil - did you get anymore updates? Looks like unfortunately the issue meant they slipped down the results ladder.....what a shame. Do we know what happened?
Colin mentioned he broke the throttle link by having too much open throttle!!!
Lost the podium finish, damn it.
Ian Morris was second in the Late Classic class.
Hi guys
Well unfortunately we lost the podium finish, everything looked good and then about 8k into the first stage of the morning the little pivot arm that is bolted to the inlet manifold snapped off and we lost throttle. I was able to cable tie it up enough to get to the end of the stage but even with 40 mins of late time we couldn't come up with a good enough solution to keep us going for the rest of the morning and there was no way our crew could get to us so that was the end of that, we managed to fix it at the lunch brake and get to the finish line.
what an event though over 2000km of touring and over 600km of competition, biggest Aus. Tarmac rally ever, and it felt like it, i'll save the full report for the mag but congrats to the GTV6 that made it 2nd in late classic and also congrats to the guys in the volvo that got second in early classic by 1 second, we had a good chat with that team during/after the event and they where top blokes who where wrapped to see a new classic car really going for it.
we still managed category and class wins and i guess all i can say now is, can't wait for the next one....
Despite the late issues another great effort Colin. Well done. Looking forward to reading the full report👍
Rotten luck Colin, still at least no damage to your car. Caught up with Blakey at the club meeting tonight. The off they had was pretty scary stuff. 140km into the trees, lucky they didn't roll or hit a telegraph pole. The Lancia is reparable but won't be cheap. Geoff Storr and Steve Caplice in the Alfetta hit a tree head on but again all are ok, and the car is fixable. Oh well there is always next year.
Hey Colin
Still a great effort in being so close to the pointy end for much of the event ! A real test of man & machine - as they say !!
I was receiving the daily update from Ashley in the Volvo - and I know they were watching your progress very closely !
Well done to your dad in having a solid finish also......
Regards,
John L
Hi Colin, That really is rotten luck and regardless a TOP effort. You have got the juices flowing again....its a box that i really wanna tick one day!!!!!!!!!
Gentlemen,
Colin's performance is not just a "top Effort", "Excellent" or even "outstanding". It is also "Astounding" - in fact, had I not witnessed it first hand, I would actually think it unbelievable!
There were 7 Alfa's entered in the Classic category of this years Targa tasmania, and the results in Classic Outright were as follows:
Ian Morris - 12th
Colin Byrne - 18th
Peter Heron - 32nd
Paul Byrne - 36th
David Ogg - 38th
John Keating - 50th
Geoff Storr - DNF
However, please note the following:
1. Ian Morris drives a GTV6 and is an A grade peddler with lots of experience - he has WON Targa Classic category outright previously in another GTV6.
2. An analysis of the individual stage results shows that, after ignoring the prologue stages and the stages where their times were equal or both clean sheeted the stage, there were 34 stages that they competed on.
Colin beat Ian's time on 28 of these stages - apart from Sheffield stage, all other stages won by Ian were after Colin had trouble with his throttle linkage!
3. My estimate is that the throttle linkage problem cost Colin between 15 and 16 minutes after it occured - if I am correct, he would have placed 9th outright in Classic Competition, ahead of a large number of Porsche's and all Ferrari's - an astounding result.
4. Colin has shared on the forum his car preparation skills and he has a very fast and great handling car - BUT I believe these results are equally a reflection of a seriously talented driver - I don't think many others could equal Colin's times, even driving his car. Perhaps he should seriously consider becoming a pro??
General comments:
1. My own performance was partly affected by a series of electrical gremlins that attacked my car - turned out to be a condensor, causing great misfiring in most stages for the first 4 days (you can hear it on the youtube video referred to by ChrisGTA above), although I was grateful for both Colin and Paul's effots to help diagnose the problem on my behalf.
HOWEVER, age appears to have wearied me (see my comments in this regard in the Targa NZ story), as I have absolutely no excuse for my 5th day performance, when my car was at least mainly running on 4 cylinders - yet the day 4 stages were some of my worst (relatively) of the event. Why? Ihave asked myself this question, and I can only conclude that after I regained 4 cylinders, I became complacent and "cruised" to the finish, as well as perhaps becoming tired/losing concentration - the latter may be the reason I was 2 minutes or so slower on the 59km Mount Arrowsmithh stage than I would have expected!!
I had some close competition with Paul Byrne, and out of 34 relevant stages, I won 14, and Paul 20 - but his concentration must be better - the day 5 stages that he won were by a considerable margin!
2. Despite the better weight distribution and more balanced (as delivered) handling of the later transaxle cars, it is unclear whether these are actually consistently any quicker than the older 105 series cars - even if running larger V6 engines - interesting.
3. None of the Alfa's experienced any terminal mechanical failure - the 1 DNF was as a result of an accident.This is a very respectable result for highly tuned cars over this long an event.
4. When I get the in car video footage from my navigator, I will post the section showing Colin passing me on the Rossarden stage - I reckon he passes me going 80kph or so faster than I am going - looks very impressive!
Hi guys
After I've had time to sit back (have a beer!) and re-read a lot of the posts I'd just like to extend my thanks to ALL OF YOU!
The whole team put a huge amount of effort in this year. Paul Stoopman my best mate, who's vehicle dynamics knowledge has been instrumental in improving the cars handling, agreed to strap himself back into the nav seat for another crack, and did an epic job. Another of our best mates Damian Barri, who helped build the car, sacrificed a week to crew for both my car and my dads, and constantly went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure we made it across the line. And of course my dad who did many things including rebuilding a spare engine in a week so we could take it down with us because he knew there was a good chance I was going to need it!
On behalf of all of us, thank you all for your interest in the event and all the words of encouragement and praise, it really means a lot to us and particularly me. As you guys have said we had some serious pace this time and we know we can go faster and really show what Alfa's are capably of. Now comes the hard part of trying to track down some sponsorship so we can continue at this level!
So once again thanks to all of you.
And also a quick but massively deserved thanks to
Vin Sharp - PACE
Historic and Vintage Restorations
Maranello Pur Sang Motors