Australians Paul Dowie and co-driver John Allen have won the 2025 Targa NZ 30th Anniversary in a Porsche GT3RS. Having taken the overall lead after the first stage on Day 3, the pair slowly extended the gap and finished 1 minute 16 seconds in front of Dave Rogers and his co-driver Shane Reynolds in their Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X RS.
“This event was epic,” commented Dowie. “We’re so glad that we got the real award which is keeping the car in one piece. Thanks to Dustin and the boys at DNG Automotive, and John Allen who is officially retiring so its great to finish on such a high. When we saw that it was over 900 kms we thought we had to do it and rounded up a group of us to come over”.
Charlie Evans and co-driver Carol Liston who were driving a Mazda RX7 finished in third place. This included them winning the Category 7 for 2WD Allcomers. The last Targa event that Evans competed in was 20 years ago in the same RX7. Rogers/Reynolds won the Allcomers Competition, while Dowie/Allen also won the Modern 2WD Class.
Mark McCaughan and co-driver Lindsay Lyons maintained their lead in the Classic 2WD Competition in their Mercedes 190E 2.3-16 ahead of Chris Barendregt and co-driver Richard Leggett in a BMW E36.
Derek Moore and his co-driver Fleur Pedersen (Audi RS4) took the honours in the two day Regional Rally, with Bruce Herbert and Samantha Cox (BMW 325) finishing second.
The Time Trial was won by Craig Inger and Oliver Going in their Mazda MX5. Siblings Dallis Yates and Alise Inger were second in a Toyota MR2 after yet more family rivalry. Alise noted that this is the first time after seven events that she has not crossed the finish line first. Her husband finished just 4 penalty points in front after taking the lead on the trio of Gentle Annie stages yesterday.
The success of another Targa was summed up by Event Organiser Peter Martin: “We had an act of God this week that threw challenges at us from the start that we wouldn’t normally see, which impacted in terms of the stages that we would usually have run as we don’t normally lose stages, but most of that was out of our control.
“So, the resilience of the team, all the officials and marshals that helped us redirect and keep everything on time was amazing. The pleasure the customers have got out of the event and how they saw the seamless operation is obvious. That’s a real testament to the people and the systems that we have in place to deal with those sorts of unexpected things”.
The full results can be viewed on www.chrissport.co.nz
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