Australian entrant, Rob Sherrard, will compete in a Holden Monaro V8, the very
car Peter Brock drove to outright victory at the 2003 Bathurst 24 Hour race. Brock raced the car for two seasons in the Australian Nations Cup series then teamed up with New Zealander Greg Murphy and the two Australian brothers, Todd and Rick Kelly, for the Bathurst enduro.
The Chevrolet-engined CV8 Holden Monaro will run as it was prepared for the long-distance race at Bathurst and the sight and sound of the big-engined Holden will no doubt evoke strong emotions from the thousands of Peter Brock fans as it travels around the Targa route in October.   The presence of this iconic car will ensure the continuation of the Holden versus Ford battle with ex-pat Steve Millen's exotic Ford GT leading the Ford challenge.
The New Zealand Targa follows the successful format of it’s Australian Tasmanian cousin and is based around 10 different categories, catering for all types of car and is now New Zealand’s largest competitive road event, spanning vehicle eras from the 1950’s to today. The competition covers most of the North Island, utilising around 1300km of touring and 600km of closed Special Stages where the cars compete against the clock.
The Holden theme continues to celebrate the life of Australia’s favourite race car driver with two other CV8 Monaros competing, a supercharged version entered by Hamish Patterson and Bryce Binnie from Auckland, while from Whakatane comes Maurice Shapley and Sheryl Hanright in their bright red version.
Ex-New Zealand champion motorcyclist Tony Rees will again run his ex-Shapley older but still quick, 1972 HQ Monaro V8 and even the Holden Torana era is represented by Auckland entrants Mark and Pam Russell in their 1973 model of the small but powerful six-cylinder Torana.
The attraction of this unique event is the ability for people from all walks of life to compete even in a standard vehicle. Given reasonable reliability and a good standard of driving ability, it is possible to be as competitive as the next man in each of the categories, even one with an unlimited cheque book. Â
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