Targa Tasmania is the sort of event, which is long enough and tough enough to throw up many surprises and setbacks.
In the case of the TMR-supported Winston Racing Evo10 of Clinton Arentz, the surprises came early when due to unforeseen circumstances, a replacement co-driver was secured the day before race start.
Once underway, the Outright leads and Class leads changed almost daily at the pointy end as cars jostled to establish their dominance.
Over the course of the six competitive days, the lead in Modern would change from Glenney/Webb, to White/White, and eventually, Vandenberg/Sims in the Nissan GT-R, with Matt Close in the Audi only seconds behind until disaster struck.
In the hotly contested 4WD Showroom category the lead changed stage by stage, day by day between Launceston based, Newman/Lewis in the Subaru WRX STi and the Winston Racing Evo10 of relative newcomer and driver, Mackay based Clinton Arentz and rally professional and co-driver, Dale Moscatt.
Whilst the Arentz/Moscatt Evo finished the Mt Rowland stage and Day 1 with a three second advantage, Newman and Lewis fought their way back to take a twelve second lead at the end of the Longford stage on Day 2.
Day 3 saw more trading of stage times with a few seconds either way and by Stage 23 Plimsoll, the two teams were exactly equal in overall times, not just for the day, but for the rally to that point. This was shaping up to be an epic Evo/Subaru battle. The last stage of the day, TS24 Rinadeena, saw the TMR Evo edge out a wafer thin margin to close another hard day’s racing up five seconds in total time.
Day 4 saw the fickle west coast weather come in with rain and fog making the roads extremely challenging. With Moscatt’s international experience and absence of fear, the Winston Racing Evo pressed on and over the next seven stages built a handy lead in 4WD Showroom of 1.33 mins. Now finally the Evo had a hard fought but slender buffer.
With the iconic long, wet and cold stages out of Strahan on Sunday morning, then Queenstown and over Mt Arrowsmith, the Arentz/Moscatt Evo10 consolidated its lead on Day 5 to take the event victory in 4WD Showroom by 2.33 minutes, as well as take the 4WD Targa Championship for 2014.
As an added bonus Arentz/Moscatt finished an impressive third outright over all categories and were the quickest section time of all competitors for the aggregated Day 5 leg.
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