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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. 

 

 

Almost mythical pony

25 July, 2024

The Shelby came to our shores in 2003. It went from the original New Zealand owner to an owner in Auckland. Malcolm just happened to be in the right place with the right amount of money in 2018 and a deal was done. Since then, plenty of people have tried to buy it off him. The odometer reads 92,300 miles. From the condition of the car that seems to be correct and only the first time around.
Malcolm’s car is an automatic. It has the 1966 dashboard, the back seat, the rear quarter windows and the scoops funnelling air to the rear brakes.
He even has the original bill of sale from October 1965 in California.

Becoming fond of Fords part two – happy times with Escorts

17 July, 2024

In part one of this Ford-flavoured trip down memory lane I recalled a sad and instructive episode when I learned my shortcomings as a car tuner, something that tainted my appreciation of Mk2 Ford Escort vans in particular. Prior to that I had a couple of other Ford entanglements of slightly more redeeming merit. There were two Mk1 Escorts I had got my hands on: a 1972 1300 XL belonging to my father and a later, end-of-line, English-assembled 1974 1100, which my partner and I bought from Panmure Motors Ford in Auckland in 1980. Both those cars were the high water mark of my relationship with the Ford Motor Co. I liked the Mk1 Escorts. They were nice, nippy, small cars, particularly the 1300, which handled really well, and had a very precise gearbox for the time.
Images of Jim Richards in the Carney Racing Williment-built Twin Cam Escort and Paul Fahey in the Alan Mann–built Escort FVA often loomed in my imagination when I was driving these Mk1 Escorts — not that I was under any illusion of comparable driving skills, but they had to be having just as much fun as I was steering the basic versions of these projectiles.