Fresh from his maiden victory at Targa Wrest Point in February, Hobart’s Matt Rickards has his sights set on upsetting the more fancied runners in this month’s Targa Tasmania.
An electrician by trade, Rickards has fully rebuilt his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 9 ahead of “the big one”, and is full of confidence, despite having only contested the event once before.
That was in 2012 when he drove for the factory Mazda team, but it was an event he’d rather forget with a number of problems throughout.
“Targa Tasmania is all very new to me, but I’m hoping that the car will be reliable and that we have done enough reconnaissance to get a good understanding of the stages,” Rickards said.
“We’ve already spent five or six days writing our pacenotes, and we’ll put in another three or four days driving the stages before the event.”
Rickards and co-driver, Michael Potter, were surprise winners at Targa Wrest Point, but they are a combination that have been knocking on the door for some time, and have often shown that they have the pace to challenger the leaders.
With no chance of winning the CAMS Australian Targa Championship (of which this is the final round), Rickards can concentrate on driving fast and aiming for the Targa Tasmania victory.
“Of course we’ll be driving as hard as we can and aiming for an outright win or a place on the podium, but it certainly won’t be easy.
“Steve Glenney will be the man to catch in his Nissan GT-R, but Jason White (Mitsubishi), Tony Quinn (Nissan) and Matt Close (Audi) will also be very fast.
“We just need to make sure that we keep the pressure on and don’t give them too much of a head start early in the event.
“If we keep the pressure on, there’s more chance that others can have mechanical problems, which could work to our advantage,” he added.
Richards’ team have made a number of suspension changes to the Lancer Evo 9 in the lead up to Targa, hoping to improve the car’s turn-in, and improving its speed through corners.
The car suffered no mechanical problems in February, and with everything rebuilt, Rickards believes that the car will be up to the job.
“We blew an engine in Adelaide last year, and then had more engine dramas at Targa High Country, but the car was perfect in Targa Wrest Point, so we’re hoping it will be in this event as well.
“It’s a long event though, so we just need to make sure we get to the finish and see where we end up from there.”
Being a Tasmanian, he’s not too fussed by what weather conditions are thrown up, although he admits that he prefers the dry running, and the forecast will have a bearing on which tyres they use.
“We’re restricted in the number of tyres we can use,” he explains. “If it’s dry then we can get away with medium compound tyres, but if there’s wet weather predicted then we’ll have to go with a mix of mediums and softs.”
Like everyone else, Rickards will be watching the weather forecast closely in the lead up to Australia’s biggest, and best, tarmac rally.
After a prologue stage in George Town on Tuesday, May 6, Targa Tasmania runs over five days, from May 7 to 11. The event starts in Launceston, where it is based for the first three days, before heading down the west coast to Strahan for two nights. The final day sees the field travel east to Hobart, for the Sunday afternoon finish at Wrest Point.
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