Snowman

Those throttle bodies are cool.

Haha - just wait til Brisby sees it

I don't give a fark whether people go there! I don't have any business relationships there - I'm jusy lucky that my good mate (and Targa nav) is the boss there so I just get to try them out from time to time when they aren't booked out. But actually driving cars is a strange thing. My most "hated" car now at the Club is the Aston Martin DB9 - now who'd have thunk that after watching Top Gear hey? But it rubbish for a number of reasons IMO - I mean it even has a worse gearbox than what your Maserati has and who'd have thought that was possible hey!? I've done an BMW M Sports day at Phillip Island and was shocked to leave there thinking the M6 was actually pretty good and that the M5 wasn't what I was hoping for. In the end it will still be a personal choice on the best - but if you do get the chance to drive all of those cars I can almost garantee if you are a driver then the car you will choose will be something from Germany rather than Italy (and that choice could be one of many). But if you really prefer the experience of being in the cars rather than the driving of them then even in the battle of the Italians I'd be suprised if the big cow doesn't get the tick first.

This thread is out of control!!! There is a local company here called the Supercar Club. http://www.supercarclub.com.au/ If you have plenty of coin you can join their club and drive all of their cars including both the F360CS and an R35 GTR If you aren't that loaded you can even do one of their subsidury day events through http://www.supercarevents.com/ and in one day drive a range of cars again. I've been lucky enough to drive pretty much all of them and I can honestly say if anyone with an open mind drives the whole range I'd be staggered if at the end they said "If I could take any one of these cars home with me it would be one of the ones with a horse on it". There is an aura about the Fez's no doubt - but the enjoyment of driving one is definitely more about being in a Ferrari (and listening to it!) than it is about driving a good car.

I still can't believe you spent 2hrs telling me that "everyone will start rocking up soon" LOL It kinda reminded me of the Targa Rookie afterparty....

So what - you think they should limit S1/M1 cars to Radials only? Good luck with bringing in that rule! LOL Plus it's the bloody EMO's that drive right on (and over) the road edges the most! Oh - and the Potato farmers....

There has been talk about this for a while but here's the first crack at it! Radial Tyres for Modern Cars A major issue at Quit Targa West is the damage to the roads through chicanes and corners. We are looking at various different ways to reduce the damage being done. It has been recommended to us by a number of leading competitors to run radial tyres. The other advantages with running radial tyres is the cars go slower and the driver gets a better feel of the car sliding. They also offer far more grip in wet conditions. If we were to implement radial tyres in 2010 it would be for all Modern Challenge and Modern Competition Cars and if successful we would look at doing the same for Classic Cars in 2011 or 2012. We welcome feedback from competitors with regards to running radial tyres. Please send comments to [email protected] Extensive discussions have led Quit Targa West Organisers to make various changes in order to secure a viable future for the event. As a result of these discussions the decision has been made to limit the Modern Categories of competition and challenge to street rated radial tyres. Further specifications and regulations to this effect will be released as soon as they come to hand. It won't slow down the cars at the front any as the GT2's, Lambo's and R35's can't get the good R Comps anyways - so it will only slow down those genuinely relying on grip for speed. So it will just make the gap wider. The arguement for "better grip in the wet" is wrong as well. Still - from what I'd heard around the traps I'm not suprised by this at all and it will be interesting to see if everyone else starts to follow suit.

Here's a short in car clip of what doing the Tour was like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNI-dgnebvk

In fairness to Motor - the official line from Nissan is that the car doesn't have LC. It does have it - but its not promoted as having it by the company. The SST EMO X's are the same - officially it doesn't have LC either...

Ferrari's have always had fixed shifters FYI.

No - but the only ones that can come in still have to be built before any of the Oz delivered ones started arriving (so pre April 2009). And they must still be brand new (or just have delivery kms on them). That's no different to how its ever been.

I'm not convinced on the static paddles. When I first got the car the static paddles was one of my issues with it. My wife as a VW R36 with moving, and I'd driven the R8 on the track and loved the moving paddles. But everything on that drive went smoothly. But when I drove a VW in Germany I was a little more angry behind the wheel and found quite a few moments when I got crossed up out of corners - and when that happens you lose your grip on the wheel and then you have NO IDEA where the damn paddle you are looking for is. And when that does happen generally you've stuffed up and need to grab a lower gear straight away so it sucks. When that happens in the R35 at least you know immediately where to find the down shift paddle to get straight back into it. It wasn't until I started having some fun in the R35 that I discovered this and should I ever find myself in the situation of building an R35 Targa car I no longer would swap to a moving paddle set-up. It's definitely a personal thing but having now driven both styles over the edge I can see the pro's and con's of both and I actually now think that fixed is the way to go. Anyhoo - just my stupid opinion.

There will be an updated model apparently - but not due out until 2013.

Fark - one of them looks just like my car!! I put mine on the market last week simply because I wasn't using it enough (I basically was just driving to work in it each day). And I figured it was a waste for what I was using it for and something more practical was in order. Because if I ever wanted some track fun I used the R34. But then I took it away on the weekend (figured I'd have one last fling) and have remember just how awesome it actually is. So now I'm thinking I'm going to change my mind and keep it again. I'll give it a week for the "high" to come down and re-assess.

Yeah basically it finished 30m past the clock tower @ the main square this year. Craig finished up in 9th. Not bad given I think they had no notes on Day 2. lol He's decided to come to Tassie too which is cool.

Just be aware that the course was shorted by around 400m at the top (with that super tricky hairpin gone as well) - so they reckon about 15s was taken off the stage. So it's not as fast as it appears (but still damn fast no doubt).

Yeah well done Uncle Dunc and Kel. Going up a hill like that with only 7psi can't be much fun but you made a damn good fist of it. Well done to Burgo too - the car sure did look hot and launched harder than anything else in the field (except maybe the sonic boom Lambo. LOL). The fight sure is going to be on at Targa next year with those Lambo's having the hollingers now.

The Tour was $350 (and you can bring passengers at no extra cost) We got to do the Prologue on Friday, and then a run the first thing in the morning and again straight after lunch on both Saturday and Sunday. So thats 5 runs (the race guys did 11) and it only cost 1/10th of the race fee. It was limitted to 30 cars but we only had 18 this year (although I think those of us on the balcony at Uncle Pats each afternoon did a good job of promoting the Tour to everyone for future events!) And if some of the concepts Mr Benson was telling me on Thursday night come to play then the future of this event will only get stronger (and Peter W. told me on Sunday afternoon that Lake Mountain has some "secret suprises in store for everyone" as well which I'm curious on I must say!) But the Tour was great. I'd recommend it to anyone that can't make the racing start line but wants a good fun car weekend away.

Just an update from the Targa guys. Steve Jones ran the R888's at Mt Buller (came 2nd outright) on his R35 on the weekend and his feedback on the Toyo's were that they weren't perfect but they did give a more consistant feel than the factory Dunlops do and he'll be sticking with them going forwards. Basically he said he didn't think they were any faster but he said they were more predictable and hence he could push harder with confidence.

Hmmm.... weekend was good I think. Seems I was drunk a lot! The Tour = funny when the "pace car" is Matt Close in his 996TT Targa car....... Probably was the best value / car time event I've ever done. And I was drunk by 3pm every day! LOL

Hey Jess - is John coming too? I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago (just before Drive Bathurst) and he wasn't sure.

Yeah Greg is a top Bloke. And he's loving his little red car now that Rex has apparently "turned it into a copy of his".

So are you doing the Nav for Greg Jess? If not and Greg is still looking I can ask Dan. I know he's coming up for the weekend (currently he's just riding shot-gun in my car for the Tour but I'm sure he'd consider a switch to a propper seat if one was needed).

Well I use it as my daily right now and that's basically all I use it for. Generally if I want some fun I take the R34. So I figured it's wasted in its current life. Plus I'm also coming to realise that with me doing all of these interstate rallies etc that I really should look at a tow car for the R34 rather than just driving it everywhere I go. So I've had to make the hard decision to let the R35 go unfortunately.

Well I've put the thing up for sale so I figured I may as well try and have one more good time in it before it finds its way to a new happy home.