Motorsport: Inkster forced to pull the pin

The Targa Rotorua Rally gets underway this morning with last year's champion a late omission from the race.

Last year's winner Glenn Inkster, and his co-driver Spencer Winn, made a decision yesterday morning about the three-day race.

Inkster said there was simply not enough hours left to complete work on their new Ecolight Mitsubishi Evo8.

"It was close, but at the end of the day, not close enough," he said.

For the past two years Inkster and Winn have been the only pair to consistently challenge five-time Targa New Zealand, and 2009 Targa Rotorua winner, Tony Quinn's dominance in Targa road rally events.

Meanwhile, Queenslander Quinn has had to borrow a car for the event from event sponsor Clark Proctor.

"We could have flown [the new car] over but the cost was going to be prohibitive," Quinn said earlier this week.

"Fortunately for us, Clark had a prior commitment this weekend and couldn't do the event himself, so his car was available."

Quinn will go into this weekend's event as favourite, racing in a Nissan GT-R35.

The 18-stage, 353km event has attracted more than 70 entries who will race across three competitive classes - 4WD, modern 2WD and classic 2WD.

Some of the entrants will also take part in the non-competitive section.

Headquarters for the event will be at the Novotel Rotorua on Tutanekai St with the vehicles parked on the Village Green before and after racing each day.