By BOB PEARCE
Fresh from his first Champ Car win, Scott Dixon will be back in action in Japan this weekend.
He will be competing on the Motegi Twin Ring, a 1.549-mile (2.5km) oval where veteran Michael Andretti won the Firehawk 500 last year.
Dixon will be starting from eighth on the grid.
For Dixon it will be his fourth Champ Car race start. Andretti will be the most experienced active driver in the field with 274 races to his credit, making him fifth on the alltime list.
American Jimmy Vasser, a regular on the track, describes the oval as an interesting challenge.
"I have run near the front at Motegi every year," Vasser said. "You have to make a decision on whether to go for pure speed or mileage.
"If you are going for speed you shift going into turn three; if you are looking for mileage you don't shift."
Sky Television has a projected race start time of 3.30 pm on Saturday and will broadcast the event live.
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PacWest Racing, the team that runs Dixon in the Champ Car series, has strong family ties with one of the leading challengers for the America's Cup.
PacWest was founded in 1993 by Bruce McCaw, brother of Craig McCaw, whose OneWorld Challenge will represent the Seattle Yacht Club in the 2003 America's Cup.
The McCaws made their millions when the cellular communications company they founded with two other brothers was sold to AT & T in 1994.
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Dixon's first commercial spinoff from his Champ Car victory was sponsorship from the magazine Men's Health.
His team said the endorsement was a reflection of the 20-year-old's punishing gym schedule, which has made him one of the leanest and fittest drivers on the track.
The latest edition of Men's Health available here has the following articles on its cover: "Fight fat in five easy steps;" "Alcoholism - beating the bottle;" "How to (1) Get the girl (2) Never grow old (3) Look good in jeans;" and "Secret sex spots - 30 great places to get naked."
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Auckland driver Matt Halliday has switched from the Toyota Atlantic championship in the United States to the Indy Lights series that was won last year by Dixon.
Halliday, who finished 11th in his only Toyota Atlantic start, will drive for the Conquest team run by Belgian Eric Bachelart. He will have his first outing at Milwaukee on June 4.
Bachelart, a former Indy Lights champion, started the season with Dane Kristian Kolby and Brazilian Nilton Rossoni, but Rossoni dropped out after the first round in Mexico.
Kolby had a third place on the controversial Texas oval, where the Champ Cars decided not to race for safety reasons.
New Zealand Grand Prix champion Andy Booth, who has struggled for financial backing, has so far only raced in the Long Beach round of the championship.
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Auckland advanced driving instructor Mike Eady is off to Germany to contest the 24-hour race at the famous Nurburgring circuit near the Eiffel Mountains.
Eady was part of the successful team from New Zealand who came third in their class last year, running a Peugeot 106.
This year he joins the factory German VW team, but doesn't yet know which of the three cars entered he will be driving.
"The factory-supported cars are a VW Diesel Golf, a VW Polo and the specialised VW Bora six-speed turbo and, to be honest, I'd be happy to drive any one of them," he says.
The race attracts one of the biggest saloon car fields in the world, 230 cars, and qualifying is on May 24.
Eady and Wayne Moore (a Kiwi now living in Australia) contested the Pukekohe six-hour event in a Honda Civic as preparation for Germany.
Competing against cars more than twice the size of the little Civic, they came second-in-class and 11th overall.
Moore will also be a member of the German VW works team at Nurburgring, driving the VW Diesel Golf in the alternative fuels category.
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Russell Brookes, the Englishman who won the Rally of New Zealand in 1978, driving an Escort RS1800, will be back behind the wheel in the Classic Rally of Otago event this weekend.
Brookes and co-driver Peter Scobie in an Escort BDA are seeded first ahead of Australians Ross Dunkerton and Alan Stean in a Datsun 240Z.
The 33 classic cars will run ahead of the 44 modern cars entered in the Rally of Otago, the first round of the five-round national championship.
Seeded first for that is the national champion, Bruce Herbert, whose new Subaru Impreza is not yet eligible for points.
Then follow former champion Geof Argyle (Mitsubishi), Todd Bawden (Mitsubishi), Chris West (Mitsubishi), Brian Green (Ford Escort), Ross Meekings (Mitsubishi), Andrew Hawkeswood (Mitsubishi), Lewis Scott (Mitsubishi), Chris Haldane (Mitsubishi) and Stumpy Holmes (Mitsubishi).
Herbert and Cameron Bates, affected by the same homologation problem, may opt to run cars which do conform. West has made the switch.
Seeded 13th will be Taranaki driver Glenn Smith, who won his home rally from Aucklander Marty Roestenburg last Saturday, to lead the northern regional championship.
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Team Kiwi at last got some decent track time at the latest round of the Aussie V8 Supercar championship in Darwin. Jason Richards survived the pre-qualifying stages and recorded 18th, 23rd and 24th place finishes in his Commodore, over the two days of racing.
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