The Targa attracts many international participants who bring their own cars from overseas and have the opportunity to experience New Zealand scenery on the touring stages and satisfy their competitive urges on the special stages. Peter emphasised that the Targa events not just motorsports opportunities for petrol heads with most entrants enjoying the social components of the event as much as the driving experience.

 

Peter explained that in order to get approvals to close public roads there is considerable community involvement required in the rural areas the Tours pas through and in total as many as 1,500 volunteers give up their time to get involved in a variety of roles. As the tour moves through the country there is considerable local economic benefit ranging from conventional tourism that also extends to fund raising opportunities for community groups. The example given was Marco Primary school, a 19 pupil school deep in Taranaki on SH 43 “The Forgotten Highway” that generates 50% of their total school funding from the event.

 

Targa has also overtime developed a strong charitable function and has since 2003 raised over $500,000 for our Rotary favourite, Cure Kids and in 2013 they also aligned with the Kids in Cars charity with special fund raisers being coordinated along the way  show casing some of more exotic cars taking part in the event.

 

Peter was introduced by Peter Ross and thanks provided by Bill Strand.