Racing a Porsche Cayman S in the Targa Tasmania Rally

The Australian Targa Championship is a five-day tarmac rally race through the streets and highways of the Australian island. We recently featured an awesome POV video of driver Mark Clair as he tackled one leg of the race in a Porsche 911. But, after driving 911s on the rally course for the past 20 years, Porsche Cars Australia Ambassador and eight-time winner of Targa Tasmania, Jim Richards, chose a new Porsche Cayman S this year.

Richards is very impressed with the Cayman S and, in some ways, prefers the balance of the mid-engine car to the 911s setup with the engine behind the back wheels. He finds it’s just more balanced for the bumpy roads of Tassie. Driving a near-production Cayman S, he nearly matched his time from last year in the 911 GT3 RS, a car that has 300 more horsepower. And he’s now a big fan of Porsche’s dual-clutch PDK transmission and the near instant shift times.

Unfortunately, he didn’t finish this year after taking out a fence and damaging the radiator. But Richards will be back next year … again driving the Cayman S.