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Festival Targa by Lost in Wales
The Bath Festival Targa welcomed a new sponsor for 2025, this being Yellow Box, the Yeovil based branded clothing and embroidery specialist.
The format remained the same as in previous years with ten tests, based at Castle Combe Racing Circuit. The 90 car entry was oversubscribed and a full field took the start.
Top seeds John Davies/Nick Bloxham (Ford Puma) were looking for a fifth straight win on the event and began as if they were intending to complete the task with ease - they were fastest by 19 seconds on the opening Castle Combe test.
Their lead was cut back slightly on Test 2 (Charlton Park 1) when they added 20 seconds to their test time after picking up a line fault. On time, without line penalties, Chris Woolley/Jamie Woolley (BMW E30) had been one second quicker than Davies/Bloxham on Test 2, and were fastest again on Test 3, cutting their deficit to the leaders to nine seconds.
This titanic battle came to a premature end when Davies’ Puma suffered a blown engine on Test 4 (Charlton 2) and the event was certain of having new names on the winners’ trophies.
Unusually, all 90 cars made it out of the first test, although some were walking wounded by the end. Most significantly two of the top five runners retired after the test. James Appleby/Sam Treleavan, were hopeful of making up for their narrow defeat in 2024, but had to be pushed to the finish line as their Fiesta ST150 suffered a transmission failure. Also out at this point was the Ford Puma of Dan Morris/Geth Johnson which was put back on its trailer with a holed gearbox.
The drama for the leading cars was not over. After Test 4 Ethan Davies/Paul Nelson (Vauxhall Astra) were in second place, 26 seconds behind Woolley/Woolley, having picked up a 20 second line fault on Test 2. However, their challenge came to end on Test 5 when their engine blew and they were out.
Test 5 was a repeat of the opening one back at Castle Combe, after which there was a lunch break of an hour. By this point Woolley/Woolley had been fastest on three tests and held a lead of 54 seconds over Dan Morris/Daniel Pidgeon, who were yet another crew to have been penalised for a line fault on Test 2.
Tom Brooks/Tony Brooks (Toyota MR2) were in fourth place after Test 3, but then, on the second visit to Charlton Park, a drive shaft broke and they joined the retirement list.
There was a close contest over the whole day between Neal Jones/Aled Jones (Mazda MX5) and Colin Evans/Harri Evans (BMW Compact). With the retirement of those ahead of them this became the battle for third place, with the BMW taking the position from the Mazda just before the lunch break on Test 5. Steve Knibbs/Gerwyn Barry (Ford Puma) had been fastest on Test 4, but two line faults had consigned them to fifth place at the halfway point, although they were still not far off the third place fight.
In the Club Rally, which ran alongside the Inter Club event, Lewis Ayris/James Crook (BMW 318Ti Compact) had built up a lead of a minute over George Newman/Jamie Wilson (BMW 318Ti); only a line fault on the fifth test prevented Ayris/Crook of having a clean sweep of Club Rally fastest times.
The afternoon tests used the same venues in the same sequence, although with altered layouts. The first was a single loop of the outer circuit at Castle Combe and was a surprisingly challenging affair, with only 17 crews beating the test maximum, which was set at an average of just over 18mph.
Woolley/Woolley were fastest here and on three of the other four tests, meaning that they came home with a victory margin of almost two and a half minutes; making the Festival a perfect start to their 2025 title challenge for the defending 2024 BTRDA Targa Champions.
Behind them Morris/Pidgeon fell back from challenging the leaders to a fight to keep clear of the battle for third place which was still raging between Evans/Evans and Jones/Jones. Morris/Pidgeon were only six seconds clear after Test 8, but managed to extend the gap to 24 seconds by the finish and so secured the runner up spot.
Evans/Evans were fastest of all crews on Test 8 but were still only nine seconds ahead of Jones/Jones. However, the father and son team were then given a line fault on Test 9, this, plus an increase in speed from the Mazda pair, pushed them, rather than the BMW into the final podium position at the Finish.
In the Club Rally, Ayris/Crook doubled their advantage over Newman/Wilson during the afternoon and ended two minutes ahead at the Finish. In the combined results they ended with the seventh least amount of penalties.
The highest placed under 1400cc car was the MG ZR of Zak Linham/Ashlyn Mitchell; they finished in eighth place overall. Jage Millichap/Rhys Griffin (Peugeot 106 Rallye) were the leading Novice crew, in twentieth place, but they were only twenty seconds ahead of James Hall/Chris Oakes (MG ZR), who won the small engined Novice class.
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