ORGANISERS DEFEND TARGA TASMANIA SAFETY STANDARDS

Motorsport Australia and Targa have no doubt they did everything possible in the last 12 months to stop another Targa Tasmania tragedy from occurring.

Uncertainties behind yesterday’s fatality in the Targa Tasmania has led to the event being downgraded to a non-competitive event.

It was confirmed overnight that the event is continuing, but with cars now completing the stages adhering to the road going speeds.

Motorsport Australia Director of Motorsport and Commercial Operations Michael Smith expressed that making stages slower and allowing drivers longer breaks between stages were measures introduced this year to improve safety and that Motorsport Australia and Targa Tasmania could do no more.

“I think everyone is aware there was an investigatory tribunal that was undertaken after last year’s event,” Smith said this morning.

“There were 23 recommendations that were handed down, a lot of work went into making sure that this event was not only complying with those recommendations, but was as safe as possible.”

Many questions were raised about the ability of the driver, but reports from Tasmania are that the Brisbane driver was an experienced Targa driver.

“We took steps together with Mark (Perry Targa CEO) and his team to ensure that those in the open competition had a level of experience that we were both comfortable with,” Smith continued.

“It was also one of the recommendations from the tribunal, I don’t know the exact background of the person involved. But I am aware that they do have some experience in the activity.”

The vagueness of what happened in yesterday’s fatal crash has contributed to the event becoming a non-competitive event for the remainder of the weekend.

“Details are very sketchy, to be honest, the car was only recovered late last night by the police,” Smith explained.

“We’ll work very closely with them on the circumstances of the incident, it’s really just too early to tell what’s happened at the moment.”

Targa CEO Mark Perry explained that the key to the accident is within the Rally Safe device, but this information will not be accessible and analysed in full until after the conclusion of the event.

“We won’t speculate on what caused it, how it came about or what they were doing in the lead up,” Perry said.

“The Rally Safe device for us will be key to that, to get all the data out of the car, as most modern cars do, it carries its own data carrying devices, all that will be analysed.

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