Bullnose Kemble Targa 2024

Now that the dust has settled on the first Bullnose Targa Rally at Kemble Airfield, we’d like to thank all the Competitors & Marshals for making the event a success.

We’ve received a lot of positive feedback. It’s great to know all our hard work has paid off.

Bullnose Targa 2024 Report

After a break of 4 years the Bullnose Targa returned to a new venue of Kemble Airfield nr Cirencester.
The event was upgraded to interclub status and was a round of the ASWMC, BTRDA and CMSG Targa Championships with a Clubman event running alongside.

Overall event entry was disappointing but looking at other Targa’s it seems to be and unfortunate trend this year,
On the hottest day of the year so far, which resulted in some very red and sunburnt marshals, 41 competitors faced the challenge of 8 tests and provided a very entertaining day for competitors and marshals alike.

Some great in-car camera footage on facebook and youtube really showed the driver’s commitment and the very positive feedback we have received from everyone involved with the event could well make this a permanent fixture on the Targa calendar.

Clubman Event

Class CA for cars 1400 cc and under was a family affair.
Andy Thompson and son Harry Thompson, despite having 7 clear tests out of 8 were a just 27 seconds behind father and son pairing of Chris and Ian Kent.
For the first 4 tests Andy was ahead of Chris picking up just one 10 second penalty while Chris who was slightly faster collected penalties on every test.
After lunch Chris found his rhythm, maintained his speed advantage and having 4 clear runs finally took the Class win.

Class CB for cars 1401cc and over was not so close. The biggest Class with 14 entries saw 3 teams retire.
Billy Johnson and Harry Brierley moved up to 2^nd in Class as the FTD award winner came from this Class.
Taking the Class win for the same reason by a margin of 110 seconds were Callum Lambourne and Charlotte Prince.

The Fastest Time of the Day was achieved by Eddie Martin and Jon Fox by a margin of 75 seconds and were an impressive 3^rd O/A Combined.

InterClub

Class NA was an Oxford affair.
With just two teams competing, the class win was decided by two test maximums and just one 10 second penalty from the 8 tests. Both teams were extremely precise in their driving.
Jonathan Forrest and Marios Michael were very despondent after missing the split on Test 1 and taking a maximum while Simon Lytton and Richard Austen took an early advantage.
Although slightly faster on the tests the deficit was not coming down significantly until Test 5 when Simon’s car suffered a puncture.
This maximum levelled out the deficit from Test 1 and Jonathan and Marios took the Class win and in doing so won the Best Oxford Team award.

Class NB has two retirements from the seven competitors.
Mark Carrow and Pete Donnachie took a 60 second penalty on Test 1 to be 3^rd but over the following tests their penalties were less than their opponents so they took the class win by a margin of over a minute from Josh Martin and David Motterham.

Class EA had a similar clear class win by Bob Milligan partnered by Jo-Lisa Hayes who stormed around the tests in the little Mini to take the win by over 3 minutes over Andrw and Grace Lees,
Richard Austen and Simon Lytton were 3^rd in class but Richard suffered from driving a different car from his Mk1 Escort.

It was in class EB where the closest competition took place.
A mid-field battle between the double entry car sharing team of Liam Rollings and Jamie Yapp kept the results team enthralled.
Right from the off cones were flying as Jamie took a 52 second lead but both took a significant hit with penalties.
Test 2 saw Liam have a clean run to pull back 45 seconds as Jamie gathered more penalties.
On Test 3 both drivers finally settled into the course and apart from a single tap on a cone by Liam it was clear runs to the end by both drivers with the difference between them not varying by more than a few seconds each test until finally Liam won the battle by just 1 second out of total test time of 7 minutes 24 seconds.

Not this overshadowed the achievements of the top 3.
In 2^nd place were Jon Fox and Oliver Beart, Jon taking a second award, this time as a driver.
In 1^st place were Gavin Rogers and Suze Endean, just 23 seconds in front of Jon.
However it was an imperious drive by Neil Jones and Aled Jones making the long journey from North Wales who took the top award of Fastest Time of Day by a margin of 76 seconds.

This was Neil’s second Oxford trophy in a matter of weeks as he won our Bocardo Autosolo in April. Will he come back to try and make it three out of three?

Below is the ful list of Award winners. A pdf of the results is also available to download here.

Congratulations to all the award winners.

Hopefully we’ll see you all next year.

Thanks,

Simon Phillips

Entries Secretary.

Best Oxford Team

Jonathan Forrest and Marios Michael

Clubman up to 1400cc

1^st Chris Kent and Ian Kent

2^nd Andy Thompson and Harry Thompson

Clubman over 1401cc