Nar, you're probably thinking of the Variety Club Bash - I think that one is pure fundraising.
Targa is a full on competitive tarmac rally. In fact it's
the tarmac rally - anyone know of another tarmac or even gravel rally that's attracted 90 competitors lately ? As well as the 46 cars in the modern category mentioned above there were another 40 results in the classic section, and those 86 are just the ones who finished ... And that was one of Targa's weekend events - the main Targa is 6 days of Auckland-Wellington competition. Given the current climate I'd expect to see somewhere around 150 entries, and I've seen it with over 250 entries before. In fact they had so many entries one year that the national governing body had to change the rules to let them run at 30 second intervals instead of 1 minute, otherwise it would have taken 4 hours to run each stage.
Targa works in with local schools and sports clubs out in the countryside so there is some real cash going directly into country schools and community groups as well as trickle-down from several hundred people arriving in town for a night (150 cars, 2 people in a car, average 2 service crew per car, plus the officials, that's getting on for 700 people needing food and fuel and car parts and accommodation). The locals provide groups of marshalls in return for a donation, country schools are often used as service parks, and if the timing is right the schools can put on breakfasts / lunches which the teams and their crews and any passing officials are encouraged to take advantage of. At the end of the day there is a compulsory car wash in whatever town the rally is overnighting, these are generally done by schools / scouts.
Targa's official charity is CureKids, not sure how it works but since Targa started in 2002 they've raised over $400,000 for CureKids.
Some schools also get to operate Passage Controls where the race cars need to collect a stamp on their timecard to show they were on the correct route, Targa Passage Controls always involve collecting buckets - and they get the officials as well. Filling the ashtray with $2 coins before you leave Auckland is all part of Targa week
The passage controls during school hours are neat, there's always hordes of little kids lined up watching. After school ones are more a community effort, often with the local cops involved.
Last year we (me and Dazza) were doing a bumbreaker touring section from Te Kuiti to New Plymouth, as we rolled through Urenui (I think it was) we were pretty much hypnotised from the road and then suddenly this blue and black THING leapt out onto the road in front of us - it scared the daylights out of me and we gapped it, wasn't until we were past it we spotted the police car and the people in funny hats holding buckets and realised it was the local cop in a gorilla head stopping rally cars at a passage control
Good times. Can't wait for October
Gary
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