KEY POINTS:
Offroad racing's Great Race is one of the few day-night events in the sport. Drivers get the chance to race for 100km during the day and a further 160km at night. This weekend's race is the 33rd running of the event and takes place at the northern end
of Woodhill Forest at the RNZAF bombing range. The outright winner will be the driver who has the best performance across both races.
Premier series change
The final round of the New Zealand Premier Race Championship Series will run at Pukekohe Park over the weekend of March 13-15, 2009, instead of March 20-22. The date change came about to avoid clashing with the Clipsal 500 Australian V8 Supercar race as there are a number of drivers in our BNT V8s and other premier championship series who also compete at the Clipsal 500 or the Melbourne F1 Grand Prix the following weekend, March 27-29.
Dixon's team in merger
Kiwi Scott Dixon's IRL team, Chip Ganassi Racing, has joined forces with Dale Earnhardt Inc and will merge Nascar operations beginning with the 2009 Sprint Cup season. The new team will field the Nascar-maximum four Sprint Cup cars, cutting out two full-time cars that DEI operated in 2008. The Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing driver line-up will be Martin Truex jnr in the No 1 car and Aric Almirola in the No 8 from DEI, Juan Pablo Montoya in the No 42 from Ganassi and a driver still to be determined for the No 41.
It's Ford for Rossi
Six-time MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi will drive an M-Sport Ford Focus at Wales Rally GB, December 4-7. Rossi's co-driver will be 48-year-old Carlo Cassina and he will race the Ford Focus in Italy at the Monza Rally Show, which he won last year, over the weekend. The Italian's last outing in a WRC competition was in New Zealand in 2006 when he drove a Subaru Impreza.
Toro Rosso eye 3 drivers
Formula One team Toro Rosso will look at three drivers at next week's testing for their 2009 line-up. Former Champ Car racer Sebastien Bourdais wants a second season with Toro Rossi, former F1 pilot Takuma Sato wants to get back into the main game after the collapse of Super Aguri and Red Bull junior team driver Sebastien Buemi wants to step up.