Adelaide Hills driver, Steve Glenney, has had a brilliant opening day at Targa Adelaide, winning five of the day's eight closed road stages to take an 18 second lead with three days remaining.
Glenney and his Nissan GT-R have out-paced last year's winner and reigning CAMS Australian Targa Champion, Jason White, in his Lamborghini Gallardo, with the Nissan GT-R of veteran Tony Quinn in third place, a further two seconds back.
Adelaide surgeon, Roger Paterson, sits 23 seconds on top of the Classic Outright leader board in his 1974 Porsche 911, with fellow South Australians Craig Haysman (1981 Triumph TR7 V8) and Simon Hoff (1975 Ford Escort RS2000), in second and third places.
After last night's opening spectator stage at the Adelaide Showgrounds attracted a crowd of over 16,000 fans, wet weather greeted the 100 strong field as they headed off on the day's stages north east of the city.
In a car that has plenty of fine-tuning since its last outing at Targa Tasmania in April, Glenney gradually increased his lead over pre-event favourite Jason White, storming home over the day's final two stages.
"It was a good day for us. Very tricky conditions, but we found a good feeling with the car and that enabled me to have good day," Glenney said.
"It was very slippery and we took it relatively easy, not wanting to have any moments in the big, heavy GT-R, but as I said the car was working quite well.
"We're running the standard Dunlop tyres that come on the car from the factory, but we've made a few tweaks to the suspension and the brakes since the last event.
"We'll keep improving the feeling of the car, but if it dries up we'll have to make a few more changes, but it's been a good start so far."
In second place, Jason White had some small problems throughout the day, but is still well within striking distance of the lead.
"We had a myriad of electrical issues across the morning and we just really struggled to get the car off the line at all," White said. "Still, that didn’t cost us too much time which was good.
"The last stage was where we lost most of our time. Steve (Glenney) was about eight cars ahead of us on the road, and just as we took off it started absolutely bucketing down. We spent too much time aquaplaning and we lost a bit of time.
"We’re in a pretty good position though. Eighteen seconds with three days to go is not really a problem."
As predicted, the Classic Outright battle was a two-way fight between Paterson and Haysman, with last year's winner in second place as the Porsche man won six stages.
Paterson was clearly in the better car in the wet and slippery conditions, although Haysman limited the damage with equal quickest time on the day's final stage.
"We've had an enjoyable day. The car hasn't put a foot wrong, but the driver was a bit of a problem," Paterson said jokingly.
"We set out to be leading after the first day, but we didn't have expectations as such. The aim was to try to win this event, and to do that we had to be ahead after day one.
"The conditions suited us better today because we're running soft tyres all round, but I think that might be different on the drier days and we'll see who's made the better choice.”
In other categories, Michael Ford (2012 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X) holds a six second lead in Showroom 4WD, Adam Spence has his Renault Megane eight seconds in front in Showroom 2WD, and Tim Possingham (1990 Nissan Skyline GT-R) is a clear 53 second leader in Early Modern.
The Modern Muscle Car class is being dominated by the 2009 HSV Maloo of Toby Gill, while Craig van Diemen (2004 Mitsubishi Evolution VIII) is just two seconds ahead of Scott Limbert (1989 Nissan GTR R32) in the Rookie Rallye for Modern cars.
Day two of Targa Adelaide heads west of the South Australian capital over another eight closed road tarmac stages covering a further 72.05 competitive kilometres.
The longest stage of the day is the 15.21km Marble Hill stage, the fourth of the day.
Targa Adelaide finishes in Norwood at lunch time on Sunday.
2013 Targa Adelaide - results after Day 1 of 4
MODERN
1. Steve Glenney / Bernie Webb, 2009 Nissan GT-R Spec-V
2. Jason White / John White, 2011 Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera, +18s
3. Tony Quinn / Naomi Tillett, 2011 Nissan GT-R, +20s
4. Matthew Rickards / Michael Potter, 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII RS, +37s
5. Matt Selley / Hamish McKendrick, 2005 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX RS, +56s
6. Jamie Vandenberg / Dennis Sims, 2009 Nissan GT-R, +1m02s
CLASSIC OUTRIGHT
1. Roger Paterson / Paul Whatnell, 1974 Porsche 911 RS
2. Craig Haysman / Neil Branum, 1981 Triumph TR7 V8, +23s
3. Simon Hoff / Peter Hoff, 1975 Ford Escort RS2000, +1m06s
4. Peter Ullrich / Sari Ullrich, 1963 Jensen CV8, +1m51s
=5. Roger Lomman / Annie Bainbridge, 1972 Datsun 240Z
=5. Jai Raymond / Jen Mathwin-Raymond, 1979 Rover SD1
SHOWROOM 4WD
1. Michael Flood / Nathan Green, 2012 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X
2. Ben Newman / Crichton Lewis, 2010 Subaru WRX STI, +6s
3. Stewart Liddle / Michael Lloyd, 2009 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X RS, +20s
SHOWROOM 2WD
1. Adam Spence / Erin Kelly, 2013 Renault Megane RS 265
2. Bunjamin Noor / Lee Challoner-Miles, 2011, Renault Megane RS 250, +8s
EARLY MODERN
1. Tim Possingham / Ben Scott, 1990 Nissan Skyline GT-R
2. Robert Balint / Peter Lane, 2001 Mitsubishi Laner Evo VI, +53s
3. Andre Lukasz / Adam Tillett, 1995 Nissan 200 SX, +1m23s
LATE CLASSIC HANDICAP
1. Roger Paterson / Paul Whatnell, 1974 Porsche 911 RS
2. Simon Hoff / Peter Hoff, 1975 Ford Escort RS2000, +42s
=3. Bruce Power / Andrew Buerckner, 1979 Mazda RX7, +1m13s
=3. Craig Haysman / Neil Branum, 1981 Triumph TR7 V8, +1m13s
EARLY CLASSIC HANDICAP
1. Peter Ullrich / Sari Ullrich, 1963 Jensen CV8
2. Andre Bryson / Craig Milich, 1964 Hillman Imp Rallye, +38s
3. Zac Caudo / Matt Copeland, 1973 Datsun 1200, +1m05s
SHOWROOM SPORTS
1. Glyn Crimp / Paul van der Mey, 2012 BMW 1 Series M
MODERN MUSCLE CARS
1. Toby Gill / Sam Tapping, 2009 HSV Maloo
2. Neill Ford / Colin Maher, 2007 Chevrolet Corvette Z06, +2m01s
ROOKIE RALLYE MODERN
1. Craig van Diemen / Michael Mohr, 2004 Mitsubishi Evolution VIII
2. Scott Limbert / John DalCollo, 1989 Nissan GTR R32, +2s
3. Ben Calder / David Rowe, 2000 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6, +6s
SUBSCRIBE BELOW TO READ THE FULL STORY
