As you know, Michael McMichael (more about his new career later) and I normally only enter rallies where, unless your name is Nigel, you have red hair, bad breath and you are a serial killer, you are welcomed like a lost brother, sister or other. So it came as somewhat of a surprise to learn that Targa Tasmania (an internationally renowned tarmac rally over 2000km with almost 40 competitive stages on closed roads where entrants are only approved after invitation) accepted our entry.
Perhaps it was our lack of success in last year's Classic Adelaide where, despite me having to push our 1990 BMW 3 with the big Alpina engine at the start of every section because the starter motor had died and Michael saying that once he had squeezed his not insubstantial body into the car he wasn't getting out until the finish, neither of us having any course notes but Michael did remember driving some of the roads when he was 17 but course notes wouldn't have helped anyway because we didn't know how to read them and we had no support crew except some woman in the Adelaide Hills Michael had met on Tinder the week before and two Weekend Australian readers who were only looking for the company pens that don't work anyway, we came second last.
Anyway, Targa Tassie starts next month so we are immediately taking all necessary steps to ensure Targa competition manager Pam Stables is not too embarrassed by her mistake in letting us compete. So on the weekend of March 24 we will be doing a course reconnaissance in a vain attempt to have some idea of where we are going when we cross the start line in Lonnie on April 16.
For Targa competitors and other tourists to David Walsh-land, can I suggest a visit to Penguin at Xmas because they dress the 3.15m concrete penguin up in a Santa suit? What kiddie wouldn't want a selfie with a giant concrete-covered-in-fibreglass Santa Penguin? Anyway, after visiting the sights including the Penguin Market head straight for the Stagger Inn. Just up Hardy Street, this pub is world class. The night I was there we played eight ball, table tennis, darts, slithered up and down the dance pole, hit the speed ball and did it all under the disco lights and smoke machine.
I know we have a lot of readers in the Apple Isle and if you are around late-March or during Targa, let me know and you can buy us a drink.
Well, except this brings me to Michael's new career. As you know, he is chairman of the Stepney Street-based global multinational conglomerate, Michael McMichael Motors, specialising in the servicing, repairing and going faster of BMWs. He is also the top brain surgeon in the Kensington Hotel ladies lounge and has a Masters of Beer Tasting. In conversation last night, Michael told me he had now decided to take another path in life. One where, he said, he could make an even bigger contribution to world peace and harmony. Friends, isn't this what the world needs urgently right now? Michael told me exclusively that he was moving into the nude faith healer caper. Look, there are many of us enduring psychic pain related to a feeling of emptiness and disillusion with the material aspects of our life, including things like my son Tom putting in faster laps than me in every race we have recently entered. I know I'll be calling on Michael's powers during our reconnoitring later this month. It could make our visits to the locals even more interesting.