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Targa South Island leg three and injured drivers named

30 October, 2014

We’ve just been informed that the contestants who were involved in a serious accident during Special Stage 14 of Targa South Island, near Oamaru, were father-son team, Greg and Jackson Fowles.

The accident occurred during Wednesday, October 29 when the pair hit a clay bank on the Ngapara-Georgetown Road near the Glen Settlement Road intersection. Greg Fowles was trapped in his vehicle for more than an hour and a half before he was freed and flown straight to Dunedin Hospital.

Racing continued yesterday with Glenn Inkster and co-driver Spencer Winn continuing their winning way.

Greg and Jackson Fowles

Yesterday’s first stage — a 29.97km run through George King Memorial Drive on the edge of the Taieri Gorge near Outram, was a favourite stretch for many of the contestants, runaway event leader Glenn Inkster included.

“I had a real blast through there the second time,” he said, a fact reflected by his time, at 12m 11s — a full 15 seconds quicker than his first run through in the Ecolight Mitsubishi Evo co-driven by Spencer Winn.

With just a final run around Invercargill’s Teretonga Park to go to complete the day, Inkster and Winn were just over six minutes ahead of fellow Mitsubishi pair Todd and Rhys Bawden in the Instra.com Allcomers 4WD class standings with expat South African pair Nic de Waal and Guy Hodgson upholding Subaru WRX honours in third.

As well as being all-new to Hodgson, the roads were also new to de Waal, who was happy to admit that though he had been to Queenstown, that was it as far as his South Island experience went.

“It is really great to see the eastern side of the South Island. The weather has been really good too.”

Heading into yesterday’s six stages, US-based expat Kiwi Gavin Riches and co-driving wife Amy led the Instra.com Modern 2WD class and were second overall to Inkster and Winn in their road-registered Porsche GT3 Cup car.

The pair continued to push hard this morning too, winning their class, until disaster struck in the Catlins stage.

“The car worked really well till the last stage when an exhaust failure put a hole in the muffler,” explained Riches. “The hot gases came through and cooked the drive belt which set off a fire, so we got stuck in there, put the fire out and tried to put a new belt on. We’re running but of course it cost us a lot of time. All we can do now is to fight back and try and get some of the places we have lot back again.”

After shadowing the Riches over the first two days defending Targa New Zealand title-holders Martin Dippie and Jona Grant stepped up to take the class win in the Catlins stage in their Porsche GT3 and also now lead the class overall from Christchurch pairings Dean Buist and Andrew Bulman in a Mk 11 Ford Escort RS1800 and Marcus Van Klink and Dave Neill in Van Klink’s exotic ex-WRC Citroen C2.

Coaching from the bench: Casting plastic knobs and rubber parts

16 July, 2026

Casting rubber items is simple if you have a good original to work with. The item doesn’t have to be perfect. You can use plasticine to smooth out cracks, and you can even make whole prototypes out of low-fire modelling clay available from craft stores if you need to. Prototypes can also be made of wood or metal.
You will need mould dams to contain the liquid urethane moulding solution until it cures. You can build boxes out of strips of wood, but I have found that small plastic boxes and bowls such as those you would use for leftovers in your fridge work well if you spray them with a mould release agent.
Temperature is important to the chemical processes involved, so work in an area that can be maintained at around 20 degrees. You will also need adequate ventilation because the fumes can be dangerous to breathe. And you will want to wear latex gloves to protect your hands.

Fraser Cars – low flying into the fourth decade

10 July, 2026

With almost three and a half decades under its belt, Fraser Cars is one of New Zealand’s longest-surviving car manufacturers. The company first opened its doors for business in 1988, during the boom time for kit manufacturers. During the ’80s, around 40 different companies were building kits and turnkey cars for this niche market. Of those, only Fraser and Almac Cars (established 1981) are still in business today.
Most of the new kit car companies were killed off in the cradle by the threat of new legislation that never eventuated and definitively by the sudden availability of high-performance Japanese cars when the floodgates to second-hand imports were opened. The now long-retired founder of the company, Neil Fraser, first came across Lotus Seven replicas while racing Lotus Cortinas in the early ’80s. He regularly found himself racing against a little Caterham, a Lotus Seven–styled car built in England. He was very impressed by its simplicity and handling. In 1986 Fraser built his own Lotus Seven–type car, using the knowledge he had gained from several close looks at the Caterham.