Great support for annual Targa Rally | Taranaki Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Taranaki

The 2006 Dunlop Targa Rally flew through Central Taranaki last Wednesday, with amazing local support. More than 150 students from St Joseph's School greeted the racers at the Stratford War Memorial Centre at lunchtime. Many children commented about the different types of cars and were very impressed whenever one tooted as it passed.

Last year Stratford was presented with a silver plate for being the 'best host' during the tour. Hopefully we have retained that title.

In the improved weather conditions, the powerful Nissan Skyline GTR of Joe McAndrew re-took the lead for the 2006 Dunlop Targa from Tuesday's leader, Emma Gilmour's Subaru WRX.

The close battle for the lead continued throughout Wednesday with the exciting and challenging South Taranaki stages as the drying conditions obviously suited the lightweight Australian Skelta sports car driven by Ray Vandersee.

The Honda-powered sports car kept in touch with the two leaders, holding down third position. The New Zealand-built turbo-powered Escort/Nissan of Aucklander Clark Proctor was still in fourth place overall but being challenged strongly by the Australian Turbo Porsche of the Blackie brothers.

Moving through the pack was another Australian entry, Chris Maindonald, in his Subaru WRX STI, who held onto sixth place from Taupo driver John Penny in his Mitsubishi EVO8. In complete counterpoint, but definitely part of the Dunlop Targa, there was an incident involving a young child outside Ngaere School, just south of Stratford. The Targa paramedics swung into action as they happened to be right on the spot at the time of the accident.

The day finished with an overnight stop in The Square in Palmerston North.

The 2006 Dunlop Targa finished in Hastings on Saturday with Joe McAndrew and co-driver Sue O'Neill winning the event.

Ray Sanders and Bernie Hayman cruise past St Joseph's School students in their Sunbeam Tiger.