Motorsport: Lowe rallies to finish Targa

Orewa pair Leigh Hopper and co-driver Simon Kirkpatrick have won Targa North Island. They are pictured near Hamurana yesterday in their 1995 Impreza WRX STI. Photo/Ben Fraser

Rotorua's Mike Lowe finished the Targa North Island rally despite having to change his engine on the final day.

The three-day Targa North Island event started in Auckland on Friday and made its way down to Rotorua for the final day of racing yesterday.

Plenty of locals visited the Village Green at the weekend, where the event was based, to have a look at the variety of cars taking part in the tarmac-only rally.

Lowe and co-driver Phil Sutton, from Wellington, competed well in the Classic 2WD class until their engine blew yesterday near Rotorua.

Lowe's team worked quickly to switch the engine of their 1964 Fiat Abarth 1000 and they managed to finish the rally.

Meanwhile, the overall winners were Leigh Hopper and co-driver Simon Kirkpatrick from Orewa, in their 1995 Impreza WRX Sti. Hopper and Kirkpatrick were leading the rally at the end of all three days of competition to record an impressive victory at Targa North Island 2014.

Hopper won his first Targa event, Targa Rotorua, with son Gray Hopper in 2011. He then won his second with Kirkpatrick reading the notes in 2013.

Auckland's Jason Gill and co-driver Mark Robinson (Mitsubishi Evo 9 GT) came second overall followed by Martin Dippie and Jona Grant from Dunedin (Porsche GT3), in third.

One hundred cars entered the event with about 16 not finishing.

There was one serious crash during the event but no-one was injured.

A Ford Escort (Paul Lampp/Graham Pedler) went off the road on Saturday and brought down a power pole, meaning three stages had to be cancelled.

Targa North Island took the place of Targa Rotorua and Targa Bambina this year.