They say that if you’re not going forwards you are – inevitably, I suppose – going backwards. And so, it is with the various official Targa events held in this fantastic little country of ours each and every year.
Whether you are talking about the ‘main’ multi-day Targa New Zealand event in October, the new-ish now two-day Targa Hawke’s Bay event in May, or the revived Targa Bambina run out of Hamilton this Saturday and Sunday just passed, the one thing you absolutely cannot accuse the man running them, Peter Martin of the Drury, Auckland-based Ultimate Group, of is complacency or – worse still – resting on his laurels….
If it’s not one thing he has changed of late – a name, date or venue change for an event – it’s another; the recent move (quantum shift more like) in sanctioning bodies – from long-time incumbent, MotorSport New Zealand, to the Auckland-based Australasian Auto-Sport Alliance, the wholly New Zealand-owned agency of the Australian Auto-Sport Alliance – being arguably the best example.
The latest major change, made amidst a host of others after the 25th anniversary Targa NZ event which ended on Saturday November 02 last year and ahead of the revived Targa Bambina which ran this past weekend from a new base in Hamilton, was the introduction – shock, horror – of pace notes.
Many of you are no doubt surprised when I say ‘the introduction of’ pace notes. Like me, when I first suited up to co-drive one of the ‘promo’ cars several years ago now, I thought the notes in the ‘road book’ WERE ‘pace notes.’
And when I ‘signed on’ I fully expected (and I don’t mind admitting now, that I was actually quite looking forward to the prospect of it!!!) to be confidently babbling away things like….’3L- to 6+ decreasing 7R into…’ etc, just like the blokes you see on the TV huddled down in their WRC cars do.
Instead I was given a (suitable thick and serious looking, anyway) route book and told that my main job was to get us from our accommodation each night to the event starting point each morning without getting lost. And if I could do that – and keep my breakfast and lunch down during the day – I would be doing a better job than the last bloke who sat in the chair!
Welcome to the quaint concept of the ‘blind’ rally.
I’m no expert on this particular subject, but from what I understand anyway, traditional gravel rallies (particularly at National and International level) have been using pace notes of one form or another since Adam was a cowboy.
So too did British pair Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson, when they won arguably the single most famous Targa-style tarmac road race, ever, the Mille Miglia from Brescia (in Italy’s north) to Rome on May 01, 1955.
Here, however, all Targa events have been run on a ‘blind’ basis since year dot, with just the specific start and finish points plus – obviously – any intersections and ‘caution’ points (denoted by XXX arrows on each stage as well) marked in the route book.
The ability to ‘read’ the road has always been touted as a skill a driver keen to focus on Targa events must either have or learn.
Certainly, whenever the subject of ‘notes’ has been raised before it has been fairly quickly ‘shut down’ by some of the older – and it must be said, more hidebound – members of the fraternity.
This time though – in the name of safety, and what I suppose you could call event ‘accountability’ in our increasingly risk averse yet at the same time more litigious world – long-time pace note advocate Peter Martin has got his way.
The Jemba Inertia Notes System he has settled on is based on software developed by Swedish company Jemba and comes complete with a video of each stage (which can be viewed on the Targa NZ website).
The key here is that everything needed is actually provided for you (on a plate, as it were) and because of this fact it means that you don’t have to take an extra week or so off work ahead of an event to come up with our own notes.
The way it has been explained to me, the system can be fine-tuned to suit a client’s specific needs, so – for instance – in the package adopted for the Ultimate Rally Group by local Jemba rep (and bona fide rally legend Neil Allport), every corner on every stage is now defined using words (i.e. medium), letters (L for left, R for right) and numbers (1 being the slowest, 8 the fastest).
The cost to set up and run the system was substantial but Ultimate Rally Group owner and event director Peter Martin says it was one he simply had to bear.
“Like everything else these days,” he said last week, ‘it’s a safety issue and the cost is just another compliance one I have to pay if I want to keep running events like Targa.
“Some of our regulars would prefer to see us continue in the ‘blind’ tradition. But my attitude is: “If it’s available, and it makes the event safer for everyone involved, how can we afford not to use it?
“As more requirements are placed on event management and more external investigation is likely, we have to be able to justify everything we do in order to minimise the risk to all involved.”
In much the same way – and following on from his move, several years ago now, to make the use of HANS (Head And Neck Safety) devices compulsory for all drivers and co-drivers – all new-build vehicles entered in a Targa event from this year’s Targa Bambina event must be fitted with seats with integral head restraints (aka ‘winged’ seats).
“There has been huge development in this area and as we have highly recommended the use of these for the last five years,” says Martin, “we are now saying that from 2020 any new-to-Targa vehicle will be required to have them and we are encouraging everyone else entering an existing vehicle to upgrade their seats.
“Again, this is fundamentally a safety issue, and one, I feel, we as an event organiser have to take a strong lead on.”
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