"We're pretty happy overall," Dean said after returning to his home base in Perth. "We went there to win the event and the Australian Tarmac Championship. But the puncture we had on the second day made it almost impossible to do that. The puncture occured early into the 'Sideling' stage, and we lost almost three minutes. To give away that sort of lead to Jason White and Steve Jones, it made our chances of winning pretty slim."
"That said, we're getting more performance out of the car, and we've made some big advances against the Porsches and GT-Rs. We finished 7th, but take away those three minutes and we would have been fighting for a podium."
"Jason (White) had an almost a perfect run in the Lamborghini. We put a lot of pressure on him at Targa Wrest Point in January, and they went away and put a lot of time and money into improving their car. We know we've got more to come from our Subaru Impreza WRX STi, and for it to be competitive against these latest-spec 'exotics' is a real credit to the team."
Teaming up with Maximum Motorsport for Targa Tasmania was West Australians Graham Iddles and Graham Furness, both drivers completing the five-day marathon for their best ever results. "We finished 19th outright, and we’re now regularly setting top-20 stage times," commented Graham Furness. "That’s what I set out to achieve, which is really pleasing."
Likewise Graham Iddles was happy with his event. "We’ve improved our stage times this year by more than a second per kilometer. I think Leg 2 was my best day of rallying ever, and I’m pretty happy with what we’ve managed to achieve this year."
The only mishap for the Maximum Motorsport team being an 'off' by Targa debutant Brian Green. The experienced Kiwi rally driver understeered into a pole during a rain storm that swept across the Leg 1 stages.
"The car was perfect. I had no problems at all during shakedown and the Prologue. It was just a bit unfortunate the impact split a water hose which caused damage to the engine. But we've had a great time with the Maximum team, and I'm pretty keen to come back next year."
Dean and the Maximum Motorsport team will now begin preparations for their next event, Quit Targa West, which begins on the 26th of August.
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