The inaugural Targa Wrest Point short course tarmac rally was held this weekend in southern Tasmania, Australia. Three Nissan R35 GT-Rs were entered into the event, the VIP Petfoods GT-R driven by Tony Quinn and the two Donut King Racing Nissan GT-Rs driven by Tony Alford and Peter Leemhuis.

Tony Alford’s GT-R suffered brake pad issues on day one of the event. The front brakes weren’t biting hard enough causing the rears to be overworked. Overheating the rear brakes caused their pace to slow near the end of the day. Team Donut King Racing had experienced the same type of issue during the Tasmanian Tarmac Challenge tarmac rally in October 2008 so saw that pads were changed overnight.

The pad changed proved to be successful and day two was better with Alford’s pink GT-R finishing in 9th position overall.

Peter Leemhuis started off the rally in great shape in the second Donut King Racing R35 choosing to start with a different brake pad compound to Alford. They finished in 8th position after day one.

Day two was not so great for them however, they set a quick pace in the morning but had an off just after lunch time, they chose not finish the race.

Tony Quinn’s rally got off to a great start, being the second rally Quinn has driven the GT-R in he now “believes in the car” after spending the time with it competitively. The experience gained is giving him insight into what the car will do under certain conditions and he’s quicker for it, even managing to have the top speed record of 191km/h on stage TS3 Geeveston.

In comparison to the Porsches Tony has driven throughout the years, he says the GT-R is a lot easier to drive fast. His GT-R remains almost completely standard, standard suspension and tires. An upgraded exhaust is fitted since Tony prefers the car to be loud and finds the standard exhaust to be far too quiet.

Overall he was very happy with the performance of the car;

“The car has gone brilliantly all weekend, we’re really pleased. Look out if it’s wet in Targa in April, we’ll be hard to beat.”

Quinn finished in second place on day one, 16 seconds behind the race leader but poised for a great day two.

Day 2 was a continuation of day 1 for Quinn as the consistency of both driver and GT-R shone through. Tony was able to nudge ever closer to first place, at one point being within 2 seconds of the lead. After some hard work and great driving the VIP Petfoods GT-R finished in second place just three seconds behind the Porsche 911 GT3 RS of Greg Garwood and in front of Targa super-star Jim Richards in his Porsche 911 GT2 and tarmac rally veterans the Whites in their Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera.

Congratulations to Tony, Tony and Peter on your work racing the GT-R in real competition and great work being so successful at it.

Thanks to Joel Strickland for his Targa Wrest Point report and for allowing us to use his photos. Video below and more photos and videos from Targa Wrest Point after the read more link below.

Link: Targa Wrest Point Website
Link: Joel Strickland Photographics Website
Link: Tarmac rally related articles on GTRBlog