Greenham and Esterbauer cruise to historic Targa West win

Monday 26 October, 2020

Photo: CMR Photographic

Mark Greenham and Steph Esterbauer have won the 16th edition of the Make Smoking History Targa West.

The 16th Make Smoking History Targa West has been run and won as Mark Greenham and Steph Esterbauer became just the sixth crew in history to be victorious in the popular event.

With more than 50 crews across four classes taking part in the mammoth four-day tarmac rally, which saw them complete 268 competitive kilometres across 36 picturesque stages, the battle between the top crews proved to be quite entertaining all weekend.

Behind the wheel of the 2006 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9, Greenham and Esterbauer were neck-and-neck with former champion Peter Rullo and Jimmy Marquet for much of the first half of the rally, as each crew claimed honours in one of those days.

After ending day two just slightly in front, Rullo and Marquet managed to build a small gap between them and the chasing Lancer Evo 9 after a faultless run saw them win the first five stages.

Photo: Phil Williams

However disaster struck when their 2019 SSC Lotus Exige Targa GT overheated after some surface gravel of road flicked up under the car and tore the belt attached to the cooling system on the day’s sixth stage. While they were able to fix it, it was too late as they missed the 30 minute time limit and received a penalty and ended up retiring for the day.

Their setback promoted Greenham and Esterbauer to the lead and with the duo already three and a half minutes ahead of the next crew, they got to enjoy a stress-free drive to the chequered flag.

“It feels brilliant and the past five years of competing have definitely been worth it,” Greenham said.

“I’m so happy and very relieved – today was so different from yesterday in that we could hear every noise and were thinking ‘is the diff going to go’ and things like that – we started hearing things. But it’s been great, we’re very happy.”

While Greenham and Esterbauer cruised to a victory of just under two and half minutes, the battle for second place went right down to the wire as Will White and Matt Thompson pipped Jeffery and Catherine Foster by the smallest of margins.

Photo: Tim Allott

Having been the best of the rest for much of the weekend behind the front two entries, the Fosters looked on track to steer their 2019 Porsche GT3 R to second, however it wasn’t to be as White and Thompson slowly but surely kept picking away at the gap between them on the final day.

In what was certain to be a dramatic finish, the Evo 9 pilots trailed by just one second heading into the event’s final stage where they ended up being just two seconds faster than the rival Porsche, earning them a place on the middle step of the podium.

Photo: CMR Photographic

There was far less drama in the Competition Classic class as Simon Gunson and rookie co-driver Peter Morley guided their 1971 Ford Capri Perana to a five minute victory over Tim Wolfe and Scott Beckwith in the 1974 Porsche 911 Carrera RS.

Not only did the winning duo finish the Classic competition in top spot, but they came just 20 seconds within the top five outright times.

“Right from the blocks we went out hard and kept that going all the way through. Actually, we just drive hard all the time because we just love driving this car,” Gunson said.

“We love driving fast, but we conserved a bit today. The car didn’t miss a beat, it’s been a great rally.”

Photo: CMR Photographic

In the event’s other competitions, rookies Ben Pang and co-driver Brandon Chin put on an entertaining display in their 1999 Honda Civic all weekend to win the Targa 165 by more than 17 minutes, while Jurgen and Helen Lunssman were the fastest Targa 130 crew on every stage in their electric Tesla 3 Performance+ car, winning the category by almost eight minutes.

It was a similar story in the event’s 2Day rally competition as Paul Pernechele and co-driver Ben Trager dominated the field in their classic V8 1971 Ford Falcon XY to finish five and half minutes faster than their rivals.

Details for the 2021 Make Smoking History Targa West will be released in the coming months.