Wet weather will suit Herridge’s Subaru Impreza WRX STI as it tackles the outright speed of his major rivals, including the Lamborghini of Kevin Weeks and the Porsche of Tony Quinn.
Targa West gets underway with a prologue tonight, with the real action starting on Friday morning. Thunderstorms are predicted for the first day, with showers continuing across the weekend.
“There is no doubt that when it gets wet and slippery the Impreza all-wheel drive has a big advantage over two-wheel cars because of the extra grip that we get,” said Herridge.
“Friday’s stages are also the most technical, with lots of fast, winding stuff, and that really suits us and the car as well.”
“On the Saturday and Sunday, the course really suits the cars with maximum top end speed, so we’ll hope to have a really good day on Friday and set ourselves up for the weekend.”
Herridge is just back home after spending last weekend competing in Rally Japan, a gravel round of the World Rally Championship.
The Perth father of two believes the time spent behind the wheel in a competitive environment, even though it was on a different surface, will work in his and co-driver Bill Hayes’ favour.
“There is no doubt after last weekend, and doing the Australian Rally Championship as well, that we’ve spent a lot of time in the car and are match hardened,” Herridge said.
“The change to tarmac obviously requires a different driving style, so we’re going to have to get dialed in very quickly on Friday morning if we want to be at the pointy end on Sunday afternoon.”
“I haven’t been on tarmac since Targa Tasmania in April, so the key on this surface is to listen to my notes and to get the breaking points worked out really early.”
After doing the Australian Rally Championship as a privateer, it’s also great to be back driving for Subaru Motorsport and I’m really looking forward to doing well here.”
“We finished third in Mt Buller in our Subaru Motorsport debut in January, second in Rally Tasmania and then had what would have been a top six result in Targa Tasmania but for a penalty allocated to us which we still contest.”
“So, if we can get a top five result here that would be perfect, but a win would be even better.”
This afternoon’s prologue will determine the start order for the rally on Friday morning which gets underway from Forrest Place from 9am.
Targa West consists of 30 stages across 227.08 competitive kilometres.
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