Airborne at 220 kph. That was never the plan.

There is nothing in the world like Targa Tasmania. Six days of some of the best tarmac rally roads in the world.

And I got to be the navigator. In the main competitive section of the event. In a very fast car. Seven times.

This is an adrenaline junky’s paradise. Somewhere between sheer terror and the best fun you have ever had.

What is it? 10 tarmac (not gravel) road stages per day over 6 days. Cars leave the start line every minute and race the clock.

A few stages are quite short. Just town sections of a few kilometres, with hay bales on each corner, crowds roaring and engines of the 200 or 300 competitors screaming as the entrants raced through the course.

And people live in these towns! The procession of cars flash past those houses, though the corners, leaving thick black lines in their wake. The locals love it.

Or fast and narrow country lanes winding through farmlands … or grueling winding mountain passes. Everywhere Tasmania is beautiful, even if just a glimpse.

The roads are completely closed to the public. A car 60 second in front and one 60 seconds behind. No speed limits. If you catch the guy in front, they must pull over to let you through.

As navigator, I have the pace notes ready to ‘call’ every bend, bridge, bump, crest and straight … with a speed grading so the driver knows what’s around the corner or over that next rise. It means you can travel much faster than by sight alone. If you call an unseen ‘8 Left’ when it is actually a ‘3 Right’, you could leave the road at significant speed. In Tasmania, there are lots of trees, rivers, and cliffs to connect with.

We always drove the entire course in the week before every event to check our pace notes, study the course, and practice our driver/navigator communications. We would soon be totally dependent on each other just to stay alive.

My passion for rallying matched that of my mate, (then) business partner, and driver, Mark Cummings. Together we competed in many ‘fun’ rallies where we did well in both navigation and driving. We were the first team to ever win a Platinum trophy for navigation at the Grand Prix Rally… and we won it 3 times.

It seemed only logical that we should try the big one … Targa Tasmania.

People come from all around the world for this event. And lots of our mates all decided that this was a great idea too.

So, in 1999, we all caught the boat to Tassie. With our rally cars. These were specially prepared with roll cages, fire systems, driver protections, in accordance with the safety and competition rules. There were over competitor 300 cars lined up inside the Launceston Silverdome (an indoor cycling rack) that first year. Locals came to look at the shiny cars every night and everyone was relaxed and eager with anticipation.

But then … as we headed off, one by one to the first stage, we felt very nervous. The car is not insurable. We don’t know if we will work as a team. We could crash or even die. Are we crazy? How is this even legal? Let alone Tasmania’s biggest sporting event.

3 … 2 … 1 … Go! I blurt out the pace note instructions. Much too quickly. I get back on track as Mark rushes through the gears, then already pushes hard on the brakes, steering through the next bend, and then back hard on the gas. Again, again and again. I lose my place on the notes. Too many times. Mark is patient and drives accordingly.

Finally, after 15 kilometres, we cross the first finish line. Phew. I am a mass of sweat and I am exhausted. That was the most exhilarating thing I have ever done. Can’t wait to talk about it with the guys over a beer.

But I can’t. Not yet. I must navigate the transport section to the next competition stage. Next stage? Yep … we have to this all over again. OMG. And today, there are still another 8 similar stages after that.

As we parked back at the Silverdome late in the afternoon, Mark found my wheelchair (I am without it for the entire day … too dangerous to have any loose objects in the car), gave me a beer and then I was surrounded by our mates and our crews. A journalist (Michael Browning) asked me what I thought of the day.

I pondered the experience of my first experience of Targa and eventually said “what boring lives we live every day”. That quote is in the official Targa book. Hey, my life isn’t boring, but this was just so extreme.

Of course, that was the first of 6 days. Some of the stages yet to come were even harder and longer, such as the demanding 51-kilometre stage of Mt Arrowsmith in Southwest Tassie. In the subsequent years, it snowed twice while we drove that stage. Even the special sticky road tyres don’t work in snow.

In that first year, I remember thinking that there must have been maybe 150 vehicles that had left the road. Some were retrieved and continued, a little battle scared. Others out for good. Occasionally competitors taken away in ambulances or helicopters. That is not good and always in the back of your mind.

Eventually, over the years, thoughts of mortality and family grow bigger. You witness incidents and accidents.

At the end of each day, you head back to the official day finish. And have a beer (not too many … police test everyone every morning for zero alcohol). I kept thinking about the Spitfire Pilots crossing the English Channel every day and not all of them coming home. There are gaps in the line-up of cars where guys are no longer in the event. Hey, we are doing this for fun, unlike those pilots, but the comparison kept nagging me.

After driving an unusually long straight road in Targa New Zealand one year, I was talking with Jim Richards, (7-times Bathurst-1000 and 8-times Targa Tasmania winner) about the road. It was unusually long, straight, and really rough, and Mark eventually backed off at 260 km/h. The car was all over the road and it was just too dangerous. I said to Jim, that they should put a maximum speed limit of 200 kph on that section. He said, “Chris, 200kph or 260kph … you crash and you’re dead anyway”.

It was during the final stage of Mt Bulla Sprint one year that the car in front of us hit a tree, sideways, and slid back onto the road. The car was bent in half and the navigator trapped inside. That car was the only other car identical to ours. Even the same colour. This was a bad accident.

As is the custom, the first car on the scene (us) stops and renders assistance. The next one goes to a control point and reports the incident. In this case, the race was even temporarily stopped. The navigator was seriously injured and was taken by helicopter to hospital and reportedly had many months of recuperation.

But at the top of the mountain, our families waiting for us to arrive. They only knew that the race had been stopped and a car like ours was involved. Not a great experience for those waiting at the top.

Our families very relieved to eventually see us arrive at the finish line. But not the family of the other team.

The incident spelt the end. As we drove the race car back to Melbourne, Mark and I agreed that after the next two (pre committed) races that year, we would never do this again. These crazy days would soon be over. All that time, my amazing driver Mark had never put a foot wrong. He was so good that many people thought that he could have been a professional driver. But like me, he was an accountant.

There we were, before our very last Targa Tasmania event.

We were doing the reconnaissance of a stage called Natone in the hill country north of Cradle Mountain. There was a long straight section of maybe 2 kilometres with 4 large gentle crests that obscure the narrow farmland road ahead. The pace notes include a warning “AIR” to indicate that the car could become airborne. We agreed that we should remove these needless warnings because in the previous 5 years, we don’t recall ever leaving the ground on this stage.

We had never left the ground because the warnings had slowed us down. When we entered the straight during the race and, instead of ‘400 straight, AIR’, I called ‘2 kms straight’. In all the years, I had never made such a call. By the second crest, we were traveling way more than 200 km/h. Much faster than we normally took this road. We suddenly realized why the ‘AIR’ call was included.

We left the ground for perhaps 2 to 2.5 seconds. An eternity in the air when the ground below you passes at 55 meters every second. No steering, no brakes. Luckily, we flew perfectly straight. Unfortunately, the road below had just a slight bend. We eventually landed half in the grass and half on the tarmac. We were in big trouble.

If I had been driving, it would have been all over. To this day I don’t know how Mark did it, but he managed to hold the car straight and gently pull it back onto the black stuff.

We continued on. Like nothing happened. Like so many frightening experiences we had seen before. But this was a close one that reinforced our commitment never to race like this again.

Ironically, two years later, our mate Greg Cook needed a navigator in the Classic section of the race. Speed is possibly a bit slower. So, I thought … why not. It was a (mostly) uneventful race and as always, great to share this awesome event with mates, but every time I sat in the car, I remembered why I had given up.

I haven’t even sat in a race car since.

Mark and I had done 31 rallies, including Targa New Zealand and Mt Bulla Sprint. I look back now like it was another life, almost another person.

We have sadly lost a few friends in the subsequent years and, motor sport remains a dangerous pursuit. But it is hard to describe the combination of adrenaline, excitement, fear, absolute focus, trust, companionship, and teamwork, that it takes to do Targa. And to do it well.

We also won the coveted Platinum Targa Trophy for our Targa efforts. I couldn’t tell you where it is stored. Along with all the other dust collecting trophies and a couple of bronze Paralympic medals.

Chris Alp