By BOB PEARCE
New Zealand midget car champion Michael Kendall heads for the United States next month buoyed by one of the sport's premier awards.
The 34-year-old Aucklander has been named competitor of the year, a category open to the 5000 people who compete in all classes of dirt-track speedway around the country.
For the past two years, Kendall has been growing in stature in the sport. He won his first national title at Nelson last year and retained it on his home track at Western Springs in Auckland this season.
In March he was runner-up in the Australian championship at Bacchus Marsh in Victoria after starting from grid six and narrowly failing to catch the polesitter, Michael Figliomini.
Kendall, whose father, Ron, was a saloon car champion across town at Waikaraka Park, began racing in karts, winning a national title at the age of 15.
When he got into midgets 10 years ago, he enjoyed immediate success with a North Island title in his first season. He has since won three more.
He has been a member of the New Zealand team for the past four years, the last two winning ones.
Kendall's success is notable because it has been achieved with a chassis built by New Plymouth engineer Mike Robins and powered by an American Esslinger engine.
The car is already on its way to the United States, where Kendall will have his first race on June 30 at the Chandler Speedway in Indianapolis.
Last season, in a brief American campaign, the Aucklander came close to winning a USAC feature, only to be thwarted by tyre problems when in the lead.
This time he is going for three or four months, giving up his job as a sales rep for an auto parts firm to give himself a chance of making his name in the home of speedway.
Scott Dixon will resume his Indy Lights season on Monday as favourite for the second race of the season, at Milwaukee.
Since winning the first race, at Long Beach seven weeks ago, Dixon has tested successfully but been frustrated by the long racing break.
Last week he was quickest in testing at the Milwaukee Oval, where he crashed last year in a poorly set-up car.
Racing becomes more frequent from now on until the season ends in California on October 29.
Michael Schumacher must be odds-on to increase his lead in the world Formula One championship at this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix.
The Ferrari ace won last year's race on the tricky city circuit, his fourth victory there in the past six years.
The Ferrari team have built up an impressive record of reliability with Schumacher's racecar.
The red rocket has gone for 32 races without suffering a mechanical or engine problem. Schumacher has been out of the points only six times in those races, through crashes, stalling on the grid or pit-lane mishaps. His last engine failure was in March 1998, when he completed only four laps of the Australian Grand Prix before his engine blew.
Possum Bourne has had to repair panel damage to his Subaru Impreza world rally car in preparation for the third round of the Australian rally championship in Queensland this weekend.
The car was damaged while being airfreighted to Brisbane but Bourne still expects to be able to test the car before the event. Bourne has won the first two rounds of the championship, but will be wary of Toyota driver Neal Bates, who won one of the two heats in Queensland last season.
McLaren has just gained possession of 16 more Formula One racecars, but they will not be going racing.
The cars were owned by the Sultan of Brunei, the world's richest man, who has sold them back to McLaren after deciding to trim his enormous automobile collection.
Juan Pablo Montoya's victory in the Indianapolis 500 for the Chip Ganassi team is sure to rekindle rumours that the Colombian will replace Jenson Button in the Williams team next season.
Despite Button's golden boy image in the British press, Sir Frank Williams is still keen to bring Montoya, the reigning Champ Car titleholder, to Formula One.
Among the many who did not make it through qualifying to the Indy 500 was a name very familiar to Kiwi fans, Davy Jones.
Jones, a multiple winner of the New Zealand Grand Prix, suffered neck and head injuries in a crash three years ago and has not raced a single-seater since.
The Ford-Holden war in Australian V8 Supercars is beginning to reverberate in the manufacturers' boardrooms.
Ford Australia president Geoff Polites threatened to pull out of the competition because the recent move to reduce the perceived advantage for the Holdens would not be enforced at the Bathurst 1000 in November.
After the last round at Darwin he would have had even more cause for complaint. Despite the 100mm shaved off their undertrays, Holdens again outperformed the Fords.
Motorsport: Kendall sees US race as step forward
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