Mazda has scored a major win at the Targa Tasmania after finishing at the top of their class and recording faster times than other, more sophisticated competition using nothing more than a couple of showroom-standard Mazda 3 MPS’s.

Alister McRae took the gold after team mate Rick Bates was forced to retire due to a drive belt failure. McRae recorded a total time for the rally of 19 minutes and 30 seconds, which was miles ahead of the next competitor and more than enough to secure first place in the 2WD Showroom category. What’s even more impressive is that the little hatchback also managed to post a faster time than many dedicated race cars in the Modern Competition category, beating Porsche GT3s and Lotus Exiges.

Japanese cars also dominated the top of the field in Modern Competition. Kudos must go to Steve Glenney and Bernie Webb, who posted the fastest time of the rally in their Evolution IX (above), beating the 997 Porsche GT2 of Targa champ Jim Richards, who took second place. Third place went to the Subaru WRX STI driven by Dean Herridge, while Evos and STI’s featured prominently on the rest of the leaderboard - along with the occasional GT-R. The SA22C RX-7 of Barry Faux took top spot in the Late Classic Competition.

It wasn’t all fun and games for Japanese cars though, the R35 GT-R driven by Tony Alford failed to perform throughout the Targa, and eventually retired due to suspension damage sustained during a particularly savage off-road excursion on day two. Alford says that he’s still very impressed with the car, and will be returning it to tarmac rallying in the near future.

[Source: Targa Tasmania]
[Images courtesy of Mazda, Targa Tasmania]