March 2007 (Back to Index)

Eric Goes to the Grand Prix

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March 17, 2007

Eric attends the Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne, Australia and hangs out in the Porsche garage with Peter Hill and Alex Davison. See the Hobbies section for more.

Eric Bana Leads All-Star Cast in Targa Tasmania

Eric Bana will head a star-filled entry list for 2007 Targa Tasmania, when Australia’s ultimate tarmac rally takes place from April 17-22. It will be Bana’s second outing in Targa Tasmania, but 2007 holds particular appeal for the star of 'Chopper', 'Troy' and 'Munich', as he will debut his newly-prepared Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe.

The car, which has been a treasured possession for 23 years, has just completed a major two year restoration, and Bana was keen to slot the Targa into a busy schedule to give it a first outing. His Targa Tasmania debut was back in 1996, and the international star has taken time this week to familiarise himself with the roads to be used in the 2007 tour around the Island State. Whilst Bill Pye’s Porsche Carrera will start favourite in Classic Outright, good judges believe that Bana, with his co-driver, long-time friend and fellow motoring enthusiast, Tony Ramunno, is certainly top-ten material. Event Director, Mark Perry, says Bana has shown good form in a range of motorsport events.

“Eric is a good steerer and the car he has prepared is an absolutely beautiful piece of machinery,” Perry said.

“If Eric has a good run I reckon he could sneak into the top ten outright, and when you consider some Porsches and other V8’s he’s up against, including Cattlin in his `Mean Green’ Mustang, that would be a pretty exceptional performance.”

“No doubt it’s good for the event to have someone of Eric’s calibre taking part. Motorsport is in his blood, so he’s jumped at the opportunity to spend six days driving his new toy around some of the best touring roads in the world.”


Eric Bana and Co-Driver Tony Ramunno

While the roads have huge appeal, it’s the chance to get away from in front of the camera and behind the steering wheel of his recently rebuilt Falcon that has Bana particularly excited.

“The car has been a labour of love, really,” Bana said. “Targa Tasmania is a fantastic showcase of classic cars, and I reckon our XB GT Coupe should bring back a lot of good memories for many of the fans watching the rally as it makes its way around Tasmania.”

Classic Outright contender, Peter O’Keefe and Julie Winton-Monet, who will return in their Torana SLR/5000, agree it will be good to have an XB GT Coupe out on the roads this year.

“The spirit of the event is really about classic cars, so while the modern cars go about the event

efficiently, it is the Classic cars that hold so much appeal to drivers and fans alike,” O’Keefe said.

The Modern category has again attracted some of the biggest names in Australian motorsport, with previous winners Jason & John White, Tony Longhurst and recent Rally Tasmania and Mt. Buller winner, Alan Simonsen joining event-legends and eight-time winners, Jim Richards & Barry Oliver in the chase for Modern Outright honours. Jason White, who teamed with John in winning Targa Tasmania in 2005, is hopeful of producing another win in his home-state event.

“We’d love to win again, but the quality of the event means the quality of the field is always increasing, and getting to Hobart in first place is certainly tougher than it’s ever been.”

Eric Bana Speaks at Targa Tasmania Launch

March 2, 2007
Source: Targa.org.au

"We've had the car for a long, long time and just completed a two year restoration and much to the shock of my dear friend Steve who built the car I decided to enter it in Targa this year so he's beside himself. If we put it back on the boat in as good a nick as it is at the moment then we'll be happy. But this car is really stunning and hopefully we'll put a few chips on it and take it home.

I don't think anything in life compares remotely to a tarmac rally, I've been very priviledged to experience a lot of high adrenalin stuff through work and through different forms of motor racing and I don't ahve any other experience in life that compares to how much your heart pumps out of your chest during a tarmac rally stage. I don't think there is anything that compares to it - circuit racing performing live, doing stand-up comedy, being on the Tonight Show - nothing compares to it so I'm quite addicted to them and unfortunately my career gets in the way a little bit, but I was able to put some time aside for this year.

We won't be that competitive in the car really. We'll be driving aggressively, but look, it's a car that I've owned for 24 years and it's in pretty immaculate condition so we'll be having a good time, but I have no intentions of challenging the front of the category. We've had good results in the car in the past and been in the top three in our class and if we were to do that I'd be thrilled. But the category we are in has a lot of far more experienced competitors and a lot of locals, and having driven the roads, 70 per cent of them once only, you just look at it and say you can't come close to competing with the locals if you just turn up out of the blue. But we certainly won't be pudding around - we'll be pushing the car and having a good time.

It's been completely impossible (to fit Targa in) for the past ten years, it occurred at the time of the month when I've come off a bit of a bludge period and I have to go back to work or I'm overseas because it's coming into summer overseas, so honestly since 1996 it's been my intention to come back every single year and it's taken eleven years for the moons to come into alignment to get down here this year. So I'm really excited about it and thrilled to be coming down.

The car that I'm running in I've owned since I was 15 and me and my mates like Tony (Ramunno, his navigator) have been tinkering with it, and playing with it and doing things we shouldn't for a long, long time and I didn't really have the time and the budget to go racing until literally around '96, late nineties, so I'm just a frustrated kid who didn't get to go go-karting who's living out his fantasies really."