Former Targa Tasmania winner Jason White is looking anxiously at the long range weather forecasts as the 18th edition of Australia’s ultimate tarmac rally approaches. The 36 year-old will once again drive the rear-wheel drive Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera with his uncle, John White, in the six day event, and is naturally hoping that the weather remains fine and dry, as it did in 2008.

However, the likeable Burnie driver isn’t too hopeful, with long range weather forecasts predicting a 90 per cent chance of a wet Targa. “Of course we’d love a dry event, but that’s not something we can control,” White said. “So we’ll just go flat out from the start and see where we end up.”

After retiring from last year’s Targa Tasmania with gearbox problems, the big Lamborghini has had a complete freshen up in preparation for this year’s rally. A new gearbox and differential have been fitted to the car, although a plan to install a new ABS brake system has been put on hold. “We’ve had long-standing problems with the ABS on the car, so the plan was to replace the system before this event. Unfortunately the new parts won’t arrive from Germany until next Wednesday, so it looks like it’ll be staying in the box until after the event,” White added.

The Whites will start the event as one of the favourites, although with wet weather forecast it will be the four-wheel drive cars that could well be the ones to catch. Drivers such as Jamie Vandenberg (Mitsubishi) and Tony Longhurst (Subaru) could surprise, according to White. “No doubt, it’ll be tough for us if it’s wet, particularly as we only have the one compound of Toyo tyre to choose from. It’s the only compound available for this car, and because the tyre sizes are different from front to rear, it adds to the problem.”

Competitors are only allowed to use one set of tyres for the entire event, otherwise large time penalties apply. This is okay on cars which can switch the tyres from front to rear to even out the wear rate, but not on a car like the Lamborghini. “It’s not all bad though,” White added. “We fitted new suspension to the car for Targa Wrest Point in January and we saw a big reduction in tyre wear, so that’s encouraging. The problem is, if it’s a wet Targa, then nobody will have tyre wear issues.”

If it does rain, the Whites won’t be alone in struggling for grip. The rear-wheel drive Porsche brigade, led by seven-time winner Jim Richards, will also be at a disadvantage, giving anything with all-wheel drive, including the new Nissan GT-R driven by Tony Quinn, a real chance of victory. John White has a new GT-R road car on the way from Japan, and while there are currently no plans to build the car into a tarmac racer, Jason admits that it’s not out of the question. “If we have a dry Targa and we get hosed by the GT-Rs, then I think we’ll be stripping the Nissan and putting a roll cage in it.”

Queenslander Tony Quinn is one of the pre-event favourites in his Nissan, having won the recent Rally Tasmania, but White isn’t so sure the heavy Japanese car can last the distance at Targa. “From what I’ve heard the Nissan has some gearbox issues, so it will be interesting to see if the car can last for six full days of tarmac rallying,” White said. “There’s no doubt that it’s fast, but we’ll wait until the end of the event to see how reliable it is.”

For now though, White is concentrating on fine-tuning his pacenotes for Targa Tasmania. Interestingly, he and John don’t make the notes together, and the first time they sit in the car in tandem is on the start line of the first stage. “We’ve never done noting together. John is incredibly busy at work and can’t get the time off to come pacenoting." Which is probably understandable. His business, Delta Hydraulics, features prominently on the Lamborghini, and is the reason that they can compete at the pointy end of the Targa Tasmania field. Thousands of locals will be cheering on the raucous sounding machine, and hoping for a local victory when the event reaches Hobart on Sunday, May 3.