Pitstop: Heavy traffic for Team Kiwi

By BOB PEARCE

Team Kiwi have set themselves a tough task for the Pukekohe round of the Australian V8 Supercars next month.

Not only will they field two Holden Commodores for Jason Richards and Angus Fogg in the three Supercar races on November 10 and 11, they will also have Nissan Primeras for LK500 heroes John McIntyre and Rhys McKay in the support races.

McIntyre and McKay will have the drives in the opening round of the national two-litre championship, but Fogg and Richards, the defending champion, will take over during the summer series. Richards is likely to miss the final round because of Supercar commitments.

The Pukekohe meeting will be a logistical nightmare for the team as the garage areas for the two classes are far apart.

In the lead-up to the meeting, Team Kiwi have plenty of work to do on the Commodore that survived a late-night rebuild to finish 16th at Bathurst. The car will be shipped back in much the shape it finished the 1000km race and then prepared for Richards to drive.

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Aucklander Simon Wills is a candidate for the drive at Pukekohe in the CAT Racing Ford following veteran John Bowe's split with the team.

Bowe, who shared the car at Bathurst with Wills, quit abruptly this week and the team will not race at the Indycar meeting at Surfers.

The team have announced plans to expand to four cars with a different sponsor next season, and team owner John Forbes said they would use the remaining rounds this year to assess potential drivers.

Before Bowe's departure, the team had opted not to run a second car at Pukekohe for Wills because the offer of a wildcard entry came too late.

The 47-year-old Bowe was a frontrunner in the early stages at Bathurst, until Wills had an off, and he intends to seek another championship drive next season.

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Finnish driver Tommi Makinen is to switch from Mitsubishi to Subaru for next year's world rally championship.

Makinen, who has won four world titles with Mitsubishi, is tied for the lead in this year's championship with Ford's Colin McRae. He is believed to be doubtful of the potential for the new Mitsubishi car to win him another title.

Makinen's arrival at Subaru is likely to mean that Richard Burns, who won for the team in New Zealand, will move to Peugeot next year.

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Scott Dixon's fourth placing in the latest Champ Car race at Laguna Seca has given him a 42-point lead in the rookie of the year contest with two rounds to go.

After qualifying third, the 21-year-old Kiwi was disappointed the race was cut short following a long yellow flag period because of an accident involving Oriol Servia.

"It's a shame that the race ended the way that it did because there was much more there [in our car] for us," Dixon said. "My car was really good today, and our pit strategy was just as strong.

"It was a case where the yellow flags helped a lot of the drivers, and hurt us.

"Towards the end, while we were running fourth, we felt that a few of the lead cars may have needed to pit to make it all the way, but all the yellows helped them to conserve fuel.

"Otherwise, we would have moved up a few more spots. It's disappointing, but we'll take the points and head to Australia."

Max Papis, in a Ford Lola, won the race.

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Racing is a generational thing for the Andersons of West Auckland and they have had triumphs and their share of setbacks over the years. But their last-gasp demise in the LK500 at Ruapuna on Sunday may have been the cruellest blow.

With only a couple of laps to go, Andrew Anderson, who had shared the Holden Commodore with father Bruce, was holding second place behind the winning Team Kiwi Nissan.

"I lifted off the accelerator to get third gear and the engine just went bang and I knew it was over," Andrew said. "For three laps I had almost no brakes, but I think we could have toured in to second.

"I drove the last 45 minutes with no power steering and that was tough round Ruapuna.

"I had noticed a misfire early on and it was very noticeable when Bruce was driving. I think that put things out of kilter and the crankshaft finally split in half."

After suffering brake problems in last year's LK500 at the far-less-demanding Pukekohe track, the Andersons had gone to Ruapuna well prepared. Their work paid off as they saw many of the high-profile V8 competitors sidelined.

Undaunted by their Ruapuna setback, the Andersons will be back at Pukekohe for the New Zealand V8 races with two cars.

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Expect some mutterings about equalisation when the NZ V8 championship gets under way.

Ford Falcons had the edge in qualifying, with Ashley Stichbury's record lap more than 2s quicker than the quickest by a Holden driver, defending national champion Paul Manuell.

Stichbury is a class act, but if the Fords are too dominant in the racing at Pukekohe, the championship organisers will be under pressure to redress the balance.

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Defending series champion "Racing Ray" Williams (Porsche 911 GT2) will resume his battle with the country's top SuperGT-class drivers at the Taupo Car Club's Rock FM-sponsored National Motor Race meeting at the Centennial Park track this weekend.

Williams, who won his class and the overall title last year, is using the traditional season-opening meeting at the central North Island track to debut his latest weapon, the ex-Don Kay Porsche 911 GT2.

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Marty Roestenburg made it six wins from as many starts in the northern rallysprint championship. He won the final round at Maramarua in his Mitsubishi Evo3.