Steve Glenney: From Targa to Time Attack
Targa Tasmania is a genuine “red-blooded” motorsport competition held over 6 days and 2,000 km. With 200,000 plus spectators attending the rally, and an estimated 480 million international TV viewing audience, it’s quite easy to see why this is seen as one of the holy grails of motorsport.
Before the 2010 ADVAN World Time Attack, Yokohama caught up with Steve Glenney to discuss the Mazda Motorsport Targa Tasmania campaign and how there is a surprise around every corner.
Wet conditions greeted competitors on day one. Enough to make anybody in an all-wheel drive, smile and in a 2WD reconsider their tactics. Or so it would seem. After Day 1’s 8 stages, 2008 Targa Winner Steve Glenney had taken second position.
“The ADVAN A050 tyres and the RX8 is a well balanced combination. The A050’s performance in the wet and dry were incredibly similar and a true testament to the tyre,” says Glenney.
Day 2 held similar conditions for Targa competitors. But once again, Glenney was consistently clocking top 3 times and even keeping pace with the $450K+ Lamborghini monster piloted by Jason White. “It’s been an amazing week competing in the RX8 against the World’s best performance cars, particularly when most are a lot quicker on paper.” The second day had concluded with The Mazda Motorsport team holding second position; however day 3 wouldn’t be as cheerful.
“The cars are set off in 30 second intervals. This particular stage (Mt. Roland stage) was very slippery and had a lot of oil and fuel spills scattered around,” says Glenney. This proved hazardous, and led the Simon Froude Porsche to leave the track and collide backward with a tree. The GT-R of David Ayers had stopped to assist.
Glenney describes, “We were quite shocked as we came around the corner as there were people and a car in the way. We were in a racing line, and the car in front had stopped in a blind corner. We had nowhere to go. I put my foot down and slid the tail out collecting the GT-R with the rear quarter.” When asked if anybody was injured, Glenney replied “Thankfully everybody was okay. When we looked at the telemetry it still clocked an impact of 6g.”
2010’s Targa Tasmania proved why Steve Glenney is widely regarded as the fastest and most versatile young driver in Australian Motorsport. Not just in his ability to challenge and keep pace with a lot quicker cars, but how his skill and knowledge of driving allowed him avert a potentially dangerous collision.
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Steve Glenney on the Octane Report
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