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Inkster and Winn take out Targa South Island

3 November, 2014

Glenn Inkster and Spencer Winn win the 20th anniversary Targa South Island / Photo: Fast Company/ProShotz

After winning their class in a staggering 20 out of the 26 stages they competed in, Pukekohe pair Glenn Inkster and Spencer Winn have won this year’s Targa South Island Instra.com Allcomers 4WD. Having been trying to win the event for five years, crossing the finishing line in first place was more of a relief than anything else for Inkster.

“Monday and Tuesday seem such a long time ago now. And to be honest, we’ve been pretty tame and safe all event,” he said. 

Inkster said the slipping clutch he was dealing with in the morning of the final day had him worried. 

“But really it was a tiny problem and I think we were beating ourselves up for no reason. The guys did a great job all week in keeping the car going,” he said.

Martin Dippie and Jona Grant in their 2007 Porsche GT3 RS took out the Instra.com Modern 2WD class and were also the first resident South Island pair to cross the line. 

“We’re very pleased. The car has gone like a freight train — no issues at all,” Dippe said. “We did have one moment on the Crown Range today where we gave ourselves a wee fright, but that’s racing.”

In the Metalman Classic 2WD class Mark Kirk-Burnnand and Chris Kirk-Burnnand won in their 1987 BMW M3 taking out nine of the 26 stages with more than two and a half minutes to spare between themselves and Rob Ryan and Paul Burborough. 

This year’s 20th anniversary Targa South Island attracted more than 120 entries across the three competitive classes and nearly 80 entries into the Targa Tour. 

 

 

1975 Suzuki RE5

1 November, 2024

Suzuki had high hopes for its RE5 Wankel-engined bike launched in 1975. It had started looking at the Wankel engine in the mid-60s and bought the licence to the concept in 1970.
Apparently all of the big four Japanese makers experimented with the design, Yamaha even showing a rotary-engined bike at a motor show in 1972. But Suzuki was the only one of the big four to go into production. Like many others at the time, Suzuki believed that the light, compact, free-revving Wankel design would consign piston engines — with their complex, multiple, whirring valves and pistons, which (can you believe it?) had to reverse direction all the time — to history.

Westside story

25 October, 2024

For the young Dave Blyth, the Sandman was always the coolest car and he finally got one when he was 50. “I have always had a rule. When you turn 50, you buy or can afford to buy the car you lusted after when you were 20. I was 20 in 1979 and the HZ Sandman came out in 1978. It was the coolest of the cool — I just wanted one,” he says. “Back then a Sandman cost $4500 new and a house was worth about $20,000. I made about $30 a week so it was an impossible dream then.”
Dave was heavily influenced by the panel van culture of the time. “I started with an Escort panel van and upgraded to a Holden HD panel van with a 186ci six cylinder. I started a van club, Avon City Vans.