Matt Cherry and Cade Bell have won the GT Fabrication Targa Bunbury Sprint in front of a ground of thousands thanks to a strong second half of the event.
 
A huge field of 110 competitors took part in the two-day sprint, which saw entrants get eight runs on the four-kilometre course – half of which were run in reverse order.
 
Behind the wheel of a 1982 Toyota Starlet, it took Cherry until the fifth run to secure the lead, having trailed the eventual runner-up pairing of Cody Harris and Morgan Ward after the first four runs.
 
An event-fastest run on his sixth attempt saw Cherry beat the 2004 Mitsubishi Evo 8 MR of Harris by three and a half seconds to extend the lead even further, before Harris reduced the gap on the penultimate run.


Cherry then responded with the outright fastest time for the fourth time of the event to take out the win over Harris by four seconds.
 
“We are all pretty amazed we managed to win such a great event - I’ve watched a lot of these good drivers for years, so to be the outright winner is something to be proud of,” Cherry said.
 
“My strategy was to keep it clean and have a heap of fun which is easy to do when you’re flying around the streets in the Starlet, it’s a handful.
 
“We had a few issues arise in the afternoon including a leaking oil line and I had a little spin on the second last run, but we managed to make it back up in the last run - thanks once again to Racing Dynamics for the super quick fix - it made it a little more exciting.
 
“The crowd was great, and a lot of people came to have a chat about the car and the first thing they asked was ‘what’s is this thing?’ which is quite funny but they all loved the little rocket and we hope they enjoyed watching it as much as I did driving it. It makes me smile.”
 
Harris didn’t leave the event empty handed though, as he and Ward took out the Open Rallysprint: 4WD class.


“We were struggling with heat in our brakes, and struggling with oil pressure all day,” Harris said.
 
“A class win is great, you could say it was redemption for last year where we were second and I had a fuel pump failure at the end of the day, so it’s nice to be able to finish this year with a great result.”
 
Taking out the final podium position a further 16 seconds off the runner-up Evo were Matt James-Wallace and Ben Tuck, who comfortably beat Max Whiting and Savanna Maxted by seven seconds to seal third – the fourth placed crew having posted the fastest time on run seven.


Rounding out the top five was Will White and Matthew Thompson who were the only other crew to go fastest on a run – the 2018 Nissan GTR Nismo taking the lead at the start after their opening run win.
 
White and Thompson’s fifth place came at the expense of RSEA Safety Motorsport Australia Rally Championship (ARC) regulars Daniel Gonzalez and Daymon Nicoli after the 1999 Subaru WRX drivers went faster on all but one of the runs. 

The duo also picked up the 4WD 3500cc and over win in the process.
 
Click here to view full results.
 
Following on from the event, Clerk of Course Ross Tapper was thrilled the GT Fabrication Targa Bunbury Sprint ran smoothly.
 
“It all went well and we’ve had a lot of positive feedback from competitors, they seem to love the short, sharp rallysprint format,” Tapper said.