Mazda Motorsport Ready For Targa High Country Prologue

SYDNEY – November 5, 2010: With the whole Mazda Motorsport team now assembled in Victoria’s High Country, there is a sense of anticipation ahead of this afternoon’s prologue around the streets of Mansfield.

Final preparations have been made to the RX-8 SP and Mazda3 MPS rally cars to ensure that they are ready to put in a strong challenge over the weekend. While the Mazda3 MPS is the same car that was successfully driven by Brendan Reeves to an impressive ninth outright in this year’s Targa Tasmania, the RX-8 SP is a brand new car which has been recently completed by the Mazda Motorsport team.

Both Mazda entrants into Targa High Country have a proven rally pedigree and with them being driven by two of the event’s quickest drivers in Steve Glenney and Brendan Reeves many expect them to mount a strong challenge in their respective categories. The RX-8 SP of Glenney and Webb has been seeded second outright for this afternoon’s prologue, an indication of just how highly the RX-8 SP and its crew is regarded.

“We’re not taking anything for granted” said Mazda Motorsport boss Allan Horsley. “While we certainly have hopes that both Steve and Brendan will perform at their usual high level over the sixteen stages, we need to recognise that a strong field has been assembled and that anything can happen. Targa High Country may be considered as gruelling an event as Targa Tasmania with some very tricky roads to be covered. And with changeable weather forecast for the weekend, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Steve Glenney, former Targa Tasmania winner and driver of the RX-8 SP, is also philosophical about their chances of victory. “We’re certainly conscious of the fact that we’re in a new car and while the set up is much the same as we’ve been used to with the previous car we need to remember that this is the first competitive outing for the new RX-8 SP. One thing we can be sure of is that Bernie and I will be giving it our all.”

Young rally gun Brendan Reeves again takes control of the Mazda3 MPS and is quietly confident of a good result in the competition’s Showroom category. “The Mazda3 MPS is a car that both Rhianon and I are familiar with and having seen the way it performed at Targa Tasmania this year we’re looking forward to having a crack. Having completed a thorough reconnaissance of all the stages over the past few days we can see that it’s definitely set up for some interesting racing. We’re as ready as we can be and are just counting the hours until our start in the prologue.”

Targa High Country begins at 5pm this evening with a prologue stage around the streets of Mansfield and finishes at Mount Buller on Sunday afternoon.