Targa Florio Rally – Round 1

Targa Florio Rally - Round 1

Palermo.
Sicily.

To many, these names conjure images of a seaside city with a Mediterranean climate, amazing food, and architecture that spans the ages. To racers, however, it will always ring with the sound of the Targa Florio (insert your favorite howling sports car motor here).

The Austin Slot Car Club created this series to pay homage to this unique and often astonishing event that began in 1906 and ran (sometimes sporadically) until 1977. Our purpose-built rally track provided the perfect venue to recreate the ups, downs, twists and turns of the Sicilian jewel that, even to this day, has rarely been surmounted in sheer difficulty (the Carrera Panamericana can likely be considered tougher) but never bested in grandeur.

The ASCC event focused on the 1970-73 running of the event, allowing models of the Porsche 908, Lola T290/T290, Chevron B19/B21, Alfa Romeo 33T, Ferrari 512, and Abarth 2000 from a number of different slot car makers. The ASCC track, being very tight and twisty like the mountainous passes through which the original Targa wound-through, required racers to modify their cars in some unique ways to manage the rather slow-speed environment. Some drivers chose to favor a gearing that produced more torque, while others chose to utilize their motor’s power to find that elusive perfect lap. The tightest corners on the course won’t allow a standard slot car guide to pass through without binding, so judicious customizing to the guide is necessary. Drivers are even allowed to customize the amount of volts they would like to run during their 40 laps.

The competitors showed up with a collection of Porsches and Ferraris to take-on the sinuous course, which, if history is any judge, are good choices since Porsche won in 1970 and 1973 and Ferrari won it in 1972 (1971 saw the Alfa 33/3 take the victory). David had the dubious distinction of being the first car on-course. With only practice laps having been run earlier in the day and David, himself, cleaning the track prior to the event (something he later lamented), the grip wasn’t at its peak and the best lap he could put together was a 6.717, although during practice he was easily running in the low 6-second area. Nonetheless, he set an initial bar for the 40 lap session at 284.510 seconds with his NSR Porsche.
Randy and Mark were next on-course posting 298.718 and 314.335 respectively, leaving David still at the top of the leader board.

Then John piloted his car through the 40 laps pipping David’s time by six tenths of a second – the deciding factor certainly being that John had no errors and David had one spin. John was now on top with a 283.923 with 3 more drivers yet to run.

Stephen was next on course with his Ferrari and it was plain that he’d done something right when setting up his car. It was visibly faster through the corners. He also used a unique tactic during his run – earplugs to keep the good-natured discussions around the track from distracting him. It all worked. Without mercy, he crossed the line over 12 seconds faster than his nearest rival John at a 269.585. The gauntlet had been thrown down!

For this event, we welcomed Jeff, a racer from the Houston area. He arrived with a nicely prepared Porsche and without having done any practice on the track, he was certainly going to have to surmount the huge obstacle of never having turned laps here before. In his first laps, it was clear, however, that he was extremely talented as the car matched the speed shown by Stephen. And while Stephen posted the fastest lap in the session, when the checkered flag fell on Jeff’s 40 laps, he had managed a 265.395 to take the lead by just over 4 seconds.

That left the final session to Erik and his Ferrari. Prior to the Covid shut-down of the ASCC, the Targa series had just started with a single event which was soundly won by Erik. Could he do it again? Since the top times of the day were performed with no errors, the pressure was on! That pressure must have taken its toll, while although he was able to run without errors, he could only take the third fastest time of the day. His overall time matched his fast lap, placing him third on the podium at 274.483.
This gave Jeff the victory followed by Stephen and Erik, covered by a total of 9 seconds. This bodes well for the remainder of the series with such close times.

So for now, we bid farewell to the seaside and the rough mountainous roads. Have a glass of Chianti with me and we’ll toast to the Targa and look forward to the next event!

 

YouTube Event Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxjHbPXHsT4