Giant-killing Mazda3 MPS Chases Showroom Podium

NOTTING HILL, AUSTRALIA – May 3, 2010: The Mazda3 MPS of Brendan Reeves today continued its quest for a Showroom podium at the 2010 Targa Tasmania, with Mazda’s works driver moving up to second position and slotting into the top ten outright on day four of the gruelling tarmac event.

In an exceptional display, which saw the Mazda passing Porsches, Reeves won three of the day’s eight stages, half of which were largely inundated by steady rain.

Starting today’s leg in a convincing third and 42 seconds off the second-placed Mitsubishi Evo X of Dean Evans, Reeves and his co-driver Rhianon Smyth were relentless on the road today with their impressive performance harnessing second place late in the day. In true testament to its rally pedigree, Mazda’s turbocharged hot-hatch is currently sitting ninth outright on the overall results tally.

In the highly-competitive Showroom competition, the Mazda3 MPS has so far fared favourably against its all-wheel-drive adversaries and currently sits ahead of multiple Mitsubishi Evos.

Today’s wet stages before lunch did not deter Reeves who in his powerful front-wheel drive hatch achieved the fastest Showroom time on the punishing 26km Riana stage.

After lunch the stages dried up and it was on the final stage of the day, the 33km Rinadeena snaking into Strahan, where the Mazda3 MPS pulled almost a minute on Evans and 21-seconds on the Showroom-leading Mitsubishi Evo IX of Tony Warren.

“Today was a really great, but unpredictable day,” said Reeves. “We had no idea what the weather was doing which made decisions on suspension set-up really difficult and as a result we ran a couple of stages with the sway bar disengaged when it really didn’t need to be.

“But everything just came together on the last couple of stages which saw us pull a lot of precious seconds from the two Evos in front, so we’re really happy with that.

“The Mazda3 MPS feels really solid; our Yokohamas are awesome and are wider than last year’s which has increased our grip on the road.

“The Evos get new tyres tonight, so they’ll be fast tomorrow but we’ve shown what our little Mazda3 MPS can do, so tomorrow we’ll drive flat stick in an effort to achieve the best result possible.”

Mazda Motorsport boss Allan Horsley said: “It was an almost perfect day. The car is running like an absolute dream. We’re looking forward to seeing the Mazda3 MPS cross the finish line in Hobart tomorrow night with what I hope will be a Showroom trophy.”

The fifth and final leg of Targa Tasmania consists of seven competitive stages including the event’s longest stage the 55.2km Mt Arrowsmith which offers an arduous mix of flowing roads and tricky corners. Following another 350km taking the field from one side of the Apple Isle to the other, the competition cars will end up in Hobart for the event’s official finish.