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Quit Targa West 2009: Back to Back Wins for Steve Jones in the GT-R
An amazing result for the Nissan GT-R camp as Steve Jones and Ruari Souter-Dawson take the outright win for the 2009 Quit Targa West held over the weekend in Western Australia. Jones took the lead over rival Nissan GT-R pilot Tony Quinn during Leg 2 of racing and maintained it for the entire third day of racing. Quinn ended up finishing in second place overall for the event but was then excluded from the final results in post race inspection due to an exhaust “irregularity”.
Steve Jones was the youngest winner ever for the Quit Targa West in 2008 so to pull off back to back wins is a damn good effort. Congrats to the team!
In the Modern Challenge class, the GT-R also came away victorious as brothers Mark and Andrew Conacher beat out their next fastest competitor by over 3 and a half minutes.
Great work to all involved and again a great highlight that the GT-R is now the force to be reckoned with in the tarmac rally world.
Link: Quit Targa West Website
Images: Travis Barnes
Quit Targa West 2009: Jones Retakes the Lead After Day Two
In some truly abysmal weather for tarmac rallying, Steve Jones has managed to not only make up the 13 seconds he trailed competing Nissan GT-R driver Tony Quinn, but also put another 22 seconds on top by the end of day two’s racing.
Coming around some corners there were what seemed like rivers of water across the road and you had to concentrate just to keep the car on the road. It’s difficult but I’m having so much fun out there it’s just awesome.”
Steve Jones
Tony Quinn is still in second place however and leaves almost a full minute behind to third place Dean Herridge in a Subaru STi.
In the Modern Challenge class, the Nissan GT-R of Mark and Andrew Conacher leads by 1:19 to the nearest competitor. So each Nissan GT-R entered is in a top spot after day two.
Link: Quit Targa West Website
Link: Quit Targa West Live Updates
Images: Circlework
Quit Targa West 2009: Nissan GT-R Dominates First Days of Competition
After an exciting prologue event on Thursday, Steve Jones in his R35 Nissan GT-R got off to a great start in for Friday’s first competitive stage of the Quit Targa West 2009 in Western Australia. The prologue event consisted of two laps of the 3.4 km stage with Jones managing the best time in the LF Performance Nissan GT-R. Not far behind him in third place was Tony Quinn campaigning his VIP Petfoods Nissan GT-R entry.
Steve Jones is not a newcomer to the Quit Targa West, in fact he won outright in 2008 in the same Nissan GT-R so expectations are high for a solid performance.
Due to the reverse start order system this meant that Steve was last to start the first of seven stages for Leg 1 on Friday. After the third leg it looked like Jones was right on track to take a back to back win but in SS4 Tony Quinn in his GT-R was to snatch the lead and continue on to put 13 seconds distance between himself and Jones by the end of the day.
So the leadership goes from GT-R to GT-R at the end of Leg 1 on Friday. Reports of rain for Leg 2 on Saturday look like the GT-R’s AWD system might give the leaders an advantage indeed.
We’ll keep you updated but live results and updates can be found at the Quit Targa West website below.
Link: Quit Targa West Website
Link: Quit Targa West Live Updates
Images: Circlework and Travis Barnes
Targa Tasmania 2009: Prologue Results and Photos
Targa Tasmania 2009 Prologue wrapped up yesterday and the Nissan GT-Rs put up a fight. Many competitors used this leg to bed in new brake pads for the legs to come.
No problems were found by the teams fielding Nissan GT-Rs and overall a good day was had by all.
Steve Jones in his GT-R finished 4th in the overall surrounded by 911 GT2s and Lamorghini Superleggeras. Jim Richards in his Porsche 911 GT2 took the outright win in this leg.
Today the serious racing begins so we’re keen to begin to see the results roll in.
Video and news release from yesterday after the jump and expect more updates later today.
Nissan GT-R Results – Temco Prologue
- 4th – Jones – Nissan GT-R
- 7th – Quinn – Nissan GT-R
- 9th – Alford – Nissan GT-R
- 13th – Leemhuis – Nissan GT-R
- 29th – Newman – Nissan GT-R
Photos: Joel Strickland (C) Joel Strickland Photographics
Quit Targa West: Steven Jones in Nissan GT-R Takes Outright Victory!
The Steven Jones driven Nissan R35 GT-R has taken outright victory in the 2008 Quit Targa West making this the first competition win worldwide for the production GT-R. Jones takes a second honour of being the youngest winner of the Targa West at just 24 years old.
Steven really shows how strong he as a driver is and how good the Nissan GT-R is when you consider the experience and speed of the teams he has beaten out in this event. Jim Richards in his Porsche 911 GT2, for example, is a Targa winning machine taking victory in the Targa West and the Targa Tasmania more often than not in the past 10 years.
To top it off, the Nissan GT-R was on factory run-flat tires while competitors were on R-compound tires.
Congratulations to the Fabcar team, amazing job at winning the first time out in the new GT-R!
Images: Tom Jakovljevic (teejay) from Skylines Australia and Paul Brockbank @ AntiLag.com
Quit Targa West: GT-R Results After Day 2
The Quit Targa West has concluded day two of racing and the Fabcar Nissan GT-R is leading the field in front of some extremely tough competitors.
Steve Jones in the GT-R started off the day running second or third in each section to Jim Richards in the Porsche 911 GT2 or Kevin Week’s Superleggera but come stage 14 he picked up the pace and aced every section.
Fabcar are in a great position for the continuation of the race tomorrow. Hopefully they can bring the prize home. Good luck guys.
Images: Dan from Skylines Australia Forums
Link: Quit Targa West Home Page
TargaWest This Weekend – Fabcar GT-R Prepared
The annual Quit Targa West is being held this weekend in Western Australia. Fabcar have been gearing up for this since first importing their JDM Nissan GT-R into Australia back in January this year.
They’ve now got the GT-R stickered up for the action and are ready to go.
The Quit Targa West is on from the 4th – 7th of September 2008 and will attract some top notch cars and drivers. Last years winner was Jim Richards/Barry Oliver in a Porsche GT3 RS followed by Tony Longhurst/Jahmeil Taylor in a Skelta G-Force. The GT-R will have it’s work cut out for it!
We’ll try and keep you updated on how the event goes through the weekend!
Image Source: Skylines Australia Forums
Link: Fabcar Home Page
Link: Quit Targa West Home Page
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