Targa Wrest Point: Brake drama puts Tony & Naomi out early

JANUARY 29, 2012.  Tony Quinn and Naomi Tillett's Targa Wrest Point challenge has ended on the second competitive stage, after a braking problem put their V.I.P. Petfoods Nissan GT-R R35 off the road.

The 390kW all-wheel drive supercar’s ABS partially failed on the 22.9km Airwalk 1 stage, causing a front brake to lock on the approach to a corner.

"The sensor on the front left wheel failed, which locked the brake for 30 metres," Tony said. “The car pulled left and slid off the road. At first I thought we’d get away with just a few scratches, because there was a clearing with what looked like soft bushes where we went off.

“But there was a small tree in amongst them – it made a quite mess of the side of the car.”

Although the Gold Coast-based V.I.P. Petfoods owner and his Adelaide navigator were able to regain the bitumen and complete the stage, they incurred a 20-minute penalty for failing to complete the next stage while running repairs were made to the battered machine.

The penalty put Tony and Naomi out of contention in the two-day Hobart event, but they drove Saturday’s remaining stages to gain practice mileage in the car before its next event, Targa Tasmania, in April. They intended to continue the extended practice session today, but retired after four of the seven stages when the 2011 model GT-R’s transmission began behaving irregularly.

“We kept going even though we didn’t have any chance in the event, because there were some things we wanted to test before Targa Tasmania,” Tony said. “This was only our second event in the new car, and it has quite a few things that are different compared to the 2009 model we ran most of last year.

“It was going okay after we changed the sensor and took off the broken bits and pieces, but we hit a pothole on Cygnet 1, and that did something to the transmission. There was nothing at stake, so I decided to stop rather than destroy a $40,000 gearbox.”

Targa Wrest Point was won by Jason and John White in a Lamborghini, with Matt and Casey Close second in an Audi TT RS, and Brendan Reeves-Rhiannon Smyth third in a Mazda RX8 SP.

Tony and Naomi's next  tarmac rally is Targa Bambina, which they will contest in V.I.P. Petfoods' New Zealand-based 2008 GT-R R35.

 

Click on the image below to watch a video of Saturday's spectacular Targa Wrest Point action.

 

The Targa Wrest Point course