Targa Invitationals 2009

What a weekend. Racing in front of 55,000 people and the V8Supercars fraternity was a real blast, very special.

I headed to the track on Thursday afternoon and arrived about 5pm. This was just to sign in and unload the car for Friday's practice and Qualifying.
I then headed off to the hotel.

Nice room. If I can get them to sponsor us, I will let you know where I stayed.

Up early Friday to get to the track by 8am for drivers briefing, then get car ready for practice. Wasn't planning on doing many practice laps, but ended up doing most of the 20min session.
That was 10am and it was a fair wait till qualifying at 4pm.
To finish the day, I meet my host for the next couple of nights, fellow racer Ross Marsden at the local pub and had a meal and a couple for drinks.

The Marsden clan!!

Race 1 was at 10am. I was pretty nervous. All those people watching. I wish Id had time to soak in all in a bit more. We had 4 races of 15 laps each to get through so my plan was to take it easy and treat it like a 60 lap race. Others didn't. About lap 3 the safety car was out and 9 cars DNF'ed. I started 22nd and finished 13th.
Some crashed, some blew their engines, some had minor faults.

Race 2 was better for everyone. I went backwards but wasn't worried. I just wanted to have fun and finish the weekend the same way I started.

So that was it for the day. Settled back and watched the V8's.

Mum and Dad


Hung round till the end of the day to catch up with Dick Johnson. Asked him to sign a couple of pictures and pose for a photo. I just wished I'd put my things down.



Enjoyed another evening at the Marsden den with a great meal. Thanks again.

On to sunday, I thought the fog would never go. Headed out to the track, changed tyres, refuelled and topped up my drink bottle. I thought with the longer races I may of need a drink along the way.

Race 3 I tried a little harder. Had some great racing even when I wasnt trying.

Had a little fun with David Clifford.

Took some photo's while waiting for my last race, which was the last race of the day. Im glad a fair section of the crowd stayed to watch.

And so the curtain closed on a great weekend. I finished 6th in class, my host Rossco won (congrats) In the last race I had pre planned to do some power slides if or when I dropped off the battle. So for about 6 laps I was sliding the car out of turn 2. I hope the crowd enjoyed it.



Thanks to David Clifford, Cable Mate, Creative Chicken (new sponsor) V8Supercars and all at Qmedia for making it happen. Hope we can do it again.

www.johnbriggs.davidclifford.com
invitationals.com.au
and look for me on facebook too.