2009 Targa Tasmania: Richards Out, Weeks Leads

Targa king Jim Richards has retired from the Targa Tasmania for the first time in his 16 years of contesting the event after hitting an embankment yesterday, damaging his suspension and holing the radiator.

With Richards out of the picture, the battle at the pointy end of the Modern class is now a three-way duel between the Lamborghinis of Kevin Weeks and Jason White and the Nissan GT-R of Tony Quinn.

At the end of day four, only eight seconds separates current leader Weeks from Quinn, while White lags behind by 1:44 thanks to mechanical issues.

Rain later in the day had most pundits predicting the rear-wheel-drive Gallardo Superleggera of Weeks would slow down and the AWD R35 GT-R of Quinn would push to the head of the pack, but brake issues with the heavy Nissan meant Quinn couldn’t sustain his previous pace.

“I drove the last three kilometres of one stage using just the gears and the handbrake, it was incredible,” Quinn said.

“The boys reckon the brake fluid probably boiled. This car is 400kg heavier than anything else, so it’s an area that we’re obviously going to have to do some development in.”

Quinn wasn’t the only one to suffer misfortune with his brakes: the ABS system of Jason White’s Gallardo caused mischief throughout leg four, which was then capped off by a windscreen wiper failure later in the day.

“The ABS problem that we knew we had coming into the event was accentuated by the wet conditions, and to make things worse the new front brake pads we put in last night went really soggy,” White said.

“We’re doing what we can in the wet, but then the wipers seized three kilometers into the last stage and we virtually had to come to a stop because the rain was so heavy. Hopefully we can fix that tonight.”

Dean Herridge crossed the line fourth, but dropped to seventh after a penalty was incurred when he had to change a pair of tyres after the Cethana stage.

Victorian Rex Broadbent currently leads the Classic category in his Porsche 911, with previous class leader Ben Wooster falling down the ladder when wet conditions forced him to take it slow in his Nissan Skyline GTS.

Greg Johnston now holds a comfortable three minute lead over Tony Warren in the Showroom class, meaning victory for him and his Lancer Evolution is all but secured.

The Targa Tasmania concludes tomorrow at 2pm AEST, and with the conditions expected to be mostly dry it’s unlikely we’ll see too much position-swapping. Stay tuned for our Targa wrap-up tomorrow afternoon.

Opel Astra OPC Limited Edition Black

In terms of power, handling and engineering, the Opel Astra OPC - or HSV Astra VXR - may not be the hottest hatch around, but there’s one area the Astra two-door hatch has always had it over its competitors: that roofline.

While most two-door hot hatches have fairly square rear quarter windows, the two-door Astra has a unique roofline utterly separate from its four-door sibling - and boy does it make a difference.

While it’s soon to be superseded by an all-new 2010 Opel Astra, the current model has always been a stunning player in the hatch market.

Now, one Opel dealer in the Netherlands has taken it a step further.

Starting as a Nurburgring Edition version of Opel’s hot hatch, this Astra has been re-sprayed in a matt/satin black finish, with a carbon fibre appearance bonnet and roof (yes, purely aesthetic, I’m afraid).

Of course, the stealth look is capped off with gloss full-black alloy rims.

With no performance upgrades appearing in the package, this is likely a clever way to sell a few runout models for a bit of a premium.

Still, with a 2.0 litre turbo engine shoveling 179kW (240hp), the Astra OPC will steam its way to 100km/h in a Golf GTI beating 6.4 seconds and a top speed of 244km/h.

Not too shabby, eh?

The GTI Project Online Slot Car Game: Join The TMR League

It’s not all fun and games around the TMR office you know. Why, sometimes we have to sit for hours on end and test brutal online car simulations that… alright, so it’s a game. (Damn… caught me.)

THE GTI Project is a simple – but highly addictive – online game in which you take the wheel of the new 2010 Volkswagen Golf VI GTI and throw it around a track made to look like a slotcar set.

But wait, it seems it’s not made to look like slot car set, it is a slot car set.

With a team of 60 modelers at its disposal, Volkswagen built a 9.1 x 7.6m (30 x 25ft) 1:43 scale slot car track, surrounded it with some 200 buildings and then proceeded to record just about every possible angle so that it could be translated into a game for you to control online.

We’ve created a TMR league at gtiproject.com, so why not join us and see if you can top the TMR leader board?

Simply visit gtiproject.com, select “Leaderboards”, and then select “Find a League.”

Enter “The Motor Report”.

I’ve set a 00:29:35 lap so far, but going by the overall leaderboard, I’m clearly rubbish at this. No doubt TMR’s readership will shut me down in good order.

2010 Lotus Evora: New Photos To Whet The Appetite

With its European launch a mere month away, Lotus has served up another heaping of 2010 Lotus Evora images to keep that steady flow of anticipation going.

Powered by a Toyota-sourced 3.5 litre V6 punching out 206kW (272hp) and 341Nm (252lb-ft) of torque, the Evora will knock over 0-100km/h in about 5 seconds, making it a healthy challenger for Lotus to take on the Porsche Cayman.

For max-speed fans, the Evora will charge to a top speed of 255km/h.

It’s a fuel-efficient supercar too – we can thank Toyota for that, although the Evora’s lightweight construction can share the credit. On the highway, you’ll achieve about 6.5 l/100km, and 12.4 l/100km around town.

For more information on the Evora, click through to our 2009 Melbourne International Motor Show coverage

AmEx, U.S. Bank contend for rewards card customers

Banks squabble, sue over Northwest Airlines fliers

By Seamus McAfee

Credit card issuers are competing for the plastic loyalties of cardholders who flew on Northwest Airlines.

In the wake of Delta's merger with Northwest Airlines, American Express announced April 27 it will be taking over Northwest's WorldPerks rewards program. Meanwhile, WorldPerks' former provider, U.S. Bank, sought to stay competitive by introducing its own expansive rewards card.

American Express, which was selected as the exclusive provider of the credit cards following the merger, said it will seek to build awareness of the card in areas that were hubs for Northwest Airlines, and will combine the two airlines' frequent flier programs into one SkyMiles card.

Cardholders of the Northwest WorldPerks Visa Card will see some changes to their program as a result of the merger. WorldPerks cardholders will be able to keep the miles they've racked up, but will have to apply for the Delta SkyMiles card in order to earn additional miles. Delta is offering incentives to encourage WorldPerks cardholders to switch over, including waiving the annual fee for the first year on the Gold SkyMiles Card and giving out 25,000 bonus miles.

U.S. Bancorp, the issuer of the now defunct WorldPerks card, also announced it would introduce its own travel card called FlexPerks, intended to replace WorldPerks and compete with SkyMiles. In an interview with KARE 11 News, Bob Daly of U.S Bank said the card will allow customers to use miles for merchandise and to obtain seats on Delta and 150 other airlines.

Northwest Airlines responded by filing a lawsuit against U.S. Bancorp; the suit seeks to prevent the bank from issuing the cards while the two former partners dispute terms. In its complaint to the court, Delta requested U.S. Bank be prevented from cutting off customers from the rewards program until Aug. 22, and to ban the use of the name FlexPerks. The airline also e-mailed its customers to warn them that U.S. Bancorp's "generic credit card" would not be accepted with Delta or Northwest.

"...We are very surprised and disappointed that Delta Air Lines took this action," a U.S. Bank spokesman said. "We are confident that we are well within our rights to proceed with the introduction of our new travel rewards program."