This year’s Targa New Zealand tarmac motor rally (which was due to start in New Plymouth on Tuesday October 26 and finish in Havelock North on Saturday October 30) has become the latest victim of the Government’s tough stance on travel in and out of Auckland as part of its Level 3 response to the latest (Delta) strain of the Coronovirus.
Owner and Event Director Peter Martin waited as long as he possibly could before making a decision on the fate of the 2021 event. But in the end, decided on Monday (October 11) to postpone it until ‘sometime in May next year.’
“We simply ran out of time,” Martin said this morning. “Because of the ‘closed car’ nature of our event, I was confident that we could run our event under Level 1 – or even, at a pinch – Level 2…….which so far anyway all of our planned route was under at the moment.
The stumbling block, however, was Auckland and what in effect, is a total travel ban for all residents, irrespective of their vaccination status, under Level 3 – until further notice…
Martin: “A lot of our competitors either live and/or store or have their cars worked on somewhere within the Supercity boundaries. Plus many of our key volunteers come from Auckland. And to be perfectly frank, without them we wouldn’t have an event.”
So, following the government’s latest COVID-19 update on Monday, and with no firm indication of when Auckland might join the rest of the country at Level 2 Martin was forced to make the call – to postpone the 2021 Targa NZ event until May 2022 in anticipation of less COVID-19 restrictions at that time.
“With so many factors to consider, such as the availability of support services (officials, medical, recovery and RallySafe), Council approval processes, resident consultations and traffic management just to name a few, we believe it is the prudent thing to do so that we can now get on with planning our 2022 calendar,’ he said.
“Already we have a possible two-day March event in the North Island, then an October two-day event, followed by the NZ Silver Fern Rally in November, both in the South Island.”
For more information go to www.targa.co.nz or check out the Targa NZ page on Facebook.
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