Well the end is here, 5+ days of the event has finally come to a end.
What a awesome 5 days it has been, over 2000kms driven and close to 7000 frames taken on two camera’s
Only two days of partly rainy days, otherwise the weather was quite good
Last leg of the event is the run from Strahan on the West Coast through to Queenstown and the famous 99 bends stage up the hills out of the town, then down through the central highlands to Hobart.
Queenstown is one of my favorite stages as the tight twisty bends out of town make for such great images and no matter where you stand it makes for great pictures
Every year there is usually a Helicopter filming the cars climb up through the hills and every year I try to get it in the shot with the cars. This year I succeeded, as you can see below
After the stage has finished, we have to drive out of the stage to follow the cars back to Hobart for the finish. On the way back to Hobart we generally find the cars that have gone off on the stages lying by the side of the road
This year was no exception after finding a Ferrari off in the trees and a Porsche upside down, we came across the bad accident of Kevin Weeks and Rebecca Crunkhorn. They had ended up off the side of the road in a big ditch, the emergency services were with them and the road was closed as a result. We waited for them to be removed from the car and for Kevin to airlifted to Hobart for checks.
After they were removed from the car we were able to grab a couple of shots of car in the ditch
Not a pretty site of the poor Lamborghini
We then headed straight back to Hobart in time for the finish.
After 5 days of hard driving, Tony Quinn and Naomi Tillett were the clear winners of the event.
Before the podium the top 3 cars in each category were pulled aside and put in a separate car park. In between interviews with the media, I found time to grab Quinn and Tillett and to set up shots with both of them and their race GTR.
After I took this first image of them, Tony turned to me and said “do you want me up on the bonnet?” I said why not.
I already had two SB800’s in use, one on camera as a master and the 2nd off camera as remote.
So up on the Bonnet they both jumped, and out to the side of the camera I sent the 2nd flash
It made for a great image, which ended up being run on the back page of the Launceston Examiner
I think he enjoyed it, it only took him 10 attempts to win the event, i think he was very happy with the result
So ends Targa 2009, a great event, even better then 2008 I think
Bring on Targa Wrest Point and Targa Tasmania 2010 I think
Is it too early to start counting days ?