Batten Father and Son Team take Second

Father and son team Mike and Paul Batten in their early classic Volvo PV544 finished second in the Early Classic Competition of Targa Tasmania after a thrilling battle with eventual winner Siddens, dropping the lead with three stages to go after a suspension failure.

Mike and Paul shared the driving in this event with Mike driving the first two days and Paul driving the final three. A spirited drive by Paul in the prologue saw the team qualify for a road position among fast machinery like Subaru STi’s, older Porsches, and Mitsubishi Evo’s.

Mike took to the wheel on Day 1, and surprised many of the surrounding cars with the pace of the 1961 model Volvo, and despite driving conservatively was placed 3 rd Early Classic at the completion of the days stages.

Day two saw the team loop out to the east coast, taking in famous stages like “the Sideling” and “ Weldborough Pass”. Some determined driving saw Mike hold his 3 rd position following John Siddens in the Datsun 240z and John Ulrich in the Jenson CV8.

The Navigators seat was something different for Paul. “I really enjoyed the challenges navigating throws at you” Said Paul. “It was quite tricky at times, everything seems much faster when you are holding a book. But I didn’t fall off the notes, so it can’t be that difficult!”

The duo swapped seats for Day 3, Paul taking over the steering duties pulling back 20 seconds on the leaders. “The team orders for the day were for Paul to start slower than my pace and slowly build up. Things didn’t exactly go to plan with Paul winning the first stage. All in all we were happy with the day and we knew that Day 4 was a big day where we could pull back some time.” Mike commented.

Targa’s penultimate Day 4 saw Paul take to the wheel for the run down the West Coast to Strahan taking in famous stages like Cethana, South Riana, and Hellyer Gorge. A “storming drive” saw the team take back over a minute from Siddens and Ferguson to lead the Early Classic competition. The father and son team even managed an outright classic equal stage win on the final Reece Dam stage.

“I worked fairly hard on the car setup early this morning, and got the car to a point I was fairly happy with by changing the damper settings.” Said Paul whose day job at Prodrive as a chassis test engineer involves plenty of driving. “I really loved today’s stages. Amazing roads, and to be able to drive over crests on the wrong side of the road legally is superb fun!” He added.

“So long as the old girl holds together we will be right!” were Pauls words leading into the final leg Day 5. Unfortunately for the team these words were to prove prophetic, after maintaining their lead over the mornings stages, disaster was to strike in the events longest stage Mt Arrowsmith. “The Panhard rod anchor bracket to the diff banjo let go with 15km’s to go in the stage” Said Mike “We were on course to clean the stage and lost 43 seconds and the lead in our battle with Siddens”.

“It was fairly disappointing for both of us. Particularly for Dad who has campaigned the car here 10 times. But things like this are part of the challenge with classic cars, and part of what makes it so special to do well” Paul added. “The rallying we are used to is more about results, but the classic competition here at Targa is about unique machinery being presented well and driven hard like they were in their heyday”. He added.

A miracle fix by service crew member and car builder Kari Dirickx from Seldom Seen Vehicles and Engineering was performed at the following service, a wheel stud being used to anchor the panhard rod to what was left of the bracket after some frantic drilling and filling. The team bounced straight back to narrowly win the final 3 stages, testament to the job performed under pressure. “There was some quick thinking by Kari in service to come up with that fix” Said Paul. “Kari showed me what he had done and I had confidence in the job to push again. We weren’t sure how much time we had lost, so I kept the pressure on in-case John had a problem”.

It wasn’t to be and the team finished second 26 seconds behind Siddens, with Coad in his spectacular Monaro 3 rd. “Paul did a good job” Said Mike. ” He is very fast, but always drove safely and looked after the car which is critical on a 5 day event like Targa”.

“We would like to thank our partners, Russell from Stuckey Tyre service, the Dunlop tyres were a big step forward from the tyres we have used in previous years. Kari and the guys from Seldom Seen Vehicles and Engineering, and Garry Comerford from VOLPRO Performance Engines who produces some of the best 4 cylinder classic rally motors around, and helped out servicing with his son’s Ashley, Drew and Justin”.

After the rally it was announced that Kari’s wife Bec was having twins. “Kari obviously isn’t just good at fixing Panhard rods” said an anonymous observer. Watch out for some Volvo in-car footage on you-tube.