2019 Targa Great Barrier Reef tarmac rally

LCQ member Ian Loxton of Yeppoon and NDSCC member Peter Stringfellow of Wynnum competed in the 2019 Targa Great Barrier Reef tarmac rally, their third tarmac rally as a team. Peter has a total of around 15 tarmac rallies to his name going back to the mid-2000s.

Ian competed in the 2013 Targa High Country tarmac rally with Cameron McIntosh from Gladstone. Since 2015, Ian and Peter have competed as a team in the 2015 Targa High Country and the 2018 and 2019 Targa Great Barrier Reef tarmac rallies.

For each event, Ian’s 1989 Toyota Celica ST185 GT4 has been run under the Early Modern Category. While not a fast car, the GT4 is an excellent endurance car that has been very reliable (until 2019!) and has a long history/provenance with a logbook to prove it.

Our 2019 Targa Great Barrier Reef was going very nicely, gradually driving into the event until Targa Stage 7 – Mareeba (a new stage for 2019) on Day 2 when the turbocharger failed in quite a dramatic fashion. A DNF – the first for the GT4 in Targa events.

After ending the event in a most disappointing way, Ian and his wife, Diane went to Milla Milla as CAMS officials on Day 3 to run a road closure on the Palmerstone and the Milla Milla Targa Stages. I am sure other LCQ members competing in the 2019 Targa Great Barrier Reef will have vivid memories of those two stages.

Ian’s plans for 2020 competition include the Morgan Park SuperSprint series and the Central Queensland hillclimbs in the GT4 while working actively on the restoration of his 1969 Elan +2. LCQ members would be very interested in the two Central Queensland hillclimbs – the 2 km Golden Mount Hill Sprint (first run in 2018) on the Mt Morgan Range road and the even newer 1.2 km Pinnacle Hillclimb, Pinnacle near Mackay run for the first time in 2019. The Pinnacle Hillclimb is a very technical, intensive, steep, power hillclimb suiting light, powerful cars (e.g. Exiges!).