Pitstop: Team Kiwi gives youngsters a chance

Six young New Zealand drivers will have the chance to compete for places in the new two-car Team Kiwi entry in the New Zealand V8 touring car championship.
David John, principal of the team that runs Paul Radisich in the Australian V8 Supercar championship, has bought most of the assets of Christchurch-based Mike Pero Racing and intends to develop young talent in the two Holdens.

In the next few weeks six potential drivers will be assessed by Radisich and the two selected will be given long-term contracts.

"We had always said that we could not compete in the New Zealand V8 touring car championship if we had to fund it out of our Australian V8 Supercar budget as we had been doing," said John.

"With the support of Mike Pero Mortgages, along with some other sponsorships currently in negotiation and further TKR merchandise sales, we believe we can run the campaign competitively.

"We want to be competitive in the series and at the same time provide a clear career pathway for our future top motorsport guys and girls in all aspects of this business in both the New Zealand championship and on the international stage of V8 Supercars."

The Pero team has been disbanded and Mike Pero and Wade Henshaw, who drove the cars last season, will not be involved directly with the new TKR-Pero outfit, which will draw on the expertise of some Team Kiwi members already involved in Supercars.

But John emphasised that the two operations were separate, run by different companies, and he did not expect the development programme to produce winners in its first season.

 

Andy Booth won the New Zealand V8 championship in Team Kiwi colours in 2002-03. The team sat out the championship last season when Booth retained his title in an Orix Holden after Henshaw had led until the last round. This season's championship begins at Pukekohe on November 5-6.

PANTANO WITH DIXON

Scott Dixon will have another new team-mate when the Indycars take to the road course in Sonoma, California, at the end of the month.

Chip Ganassi has signed Giorgio Pantano, who drove 14 Formula One races for Jordan last season, for Sonoma and the Watkins Glen road course on September 28 in New York.

RACING MEMORIES

Bikinis, beer-coolers and beanies have joined the V8 fan gear available across the Tasman, so why not old road signs and damaged car panels?

Six-times Holden Bathurst winner and ex-Formula One driver Larry Perkins went by the nickname of The Cowangie Kid during his early driving days - in reference to his little-known birthplace 150km southwest of Mildura in northwestern Victoria.

To celebrate his multiple Bathurst victories in the mid-1990s, signboards were erected on the highway in and out of the tiny township (complete with population of five) proclaiming Larry as Cowangie's most famous celebrity.

Suffering from a decade of severe weathering, the signs are being replaced by updated images, while the originals will be auctioned off in October to aid the Cowangie Heritage Trust.

Meanwhile, one of Perkins' great Ford rivals, Dick Johnson, is helping surf life-saving in Queensland by auctioning off race casualties from his Westpoint team. The offering includes:

* A Steve Johnson autographed panel. The damaged front bar of his Westpoint Ford Falcon driven at the 2005 Darwin round of the V8 Supercar championship.

* A Glenn Seton autographed panel. The driver's front door, damaged at the 2005 Australian Grand Prix, in what was Seton's first race with Westpoint Racing.

CHALLENGE IN ASIA

Palmerston North driver Geof Argyle will be hoping to make up ground on Asia Pacific rally championship leader Jussi Kalamaki when the fifth round begins in Malaysia today.

Argyle is in second place 30 points behind the Finn after missing the last round in Japan. Kalamaki has opted not to compete in Malaysia. Katso Taguchi, who is level on points with Argyle, will also be missing.

The Argyle Rallysport combination of Argyle, co-driver Jane Black (Wellington) and Brian Green (Manawatu) with co-driver Fleur Pedersen (Hawkes Bay) arrived early for the event with their two Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VIII cars.

"In some ways, dropping Japan from our programme was the best way to achieve the goal of winning the championship," said Argyle.

"We needed time to check the cars and rethink our strategy. Doing every round and hoping we finish at the top isn't a smart strategy in this sort of championship."

Argyle's main rival is likely to be Japanese Subaru star Toshi Arai, who crashed heavily in the Japan round. He is also contesting the world production car championship, which he leads.

Rally of Malaysia will be based in the southern province of Johor Baharu, across the causeway from Singapore, with 16 stages near Kota Tinggi to the east of host city Johor.

The rally is staged on roads that traverse palm oil and rubber plantations and surfaces that are a mixture of hard, fast clay or super-slippery mud.

COULTHARD IN CHARGE

Fabian Coulthard increased his lead in the Carrera Cup Australian Porsche championship after winning the fifth round at Oran Park in Sydney.

The 23-year-old Aucklander won two of the three races to lead expatriate Kiwi Jim Richards by 48 points.

Third is young Aussie Luke Youlden, who won his first Carrera Cup race at Oran Park.

KARTING SUCCESS

Sixteen-year-old Aucklander Michael Wheaton won the fourth round of the Rotax Max Challenge series at the Taranaki Kart Club's Waitara track.

Second in the final was fastest qualifier Joshua Hart, followed by fellow Manawatu drivers Michael Craig and Andrew Hoare.

The winner of rounds two and three, Tokoroa's Bradley Tyrrell, was fifth across the line.

BMW CHAMPIONSHIP

Former Hamilton karter Chris van der Drift finished fourth and 12th in the two races at the eighth round of the Formula BMW championship on the Nurburgring circuit in Germany.

Van der Drift has slipped to fourth place in the championship, three points behind Brazilian Joao Urbano.