Pitstop: Porter a contender for Baird's endurance team at Bathurst

By BOB PEARCE

Aucklander Mark Porter, who lies third in the Australian second-level V8 Supercar championship, has emerged as a contender to partner Craig Baird in the Team Kiwi car for the upcoming premier endurance races at Sandown and Bathurst.

The 27-year-old Porter's record will be matched with the performance of the team's national championship driver, Andy Booth, in a test session this month in Australia.

Booth, a former New Zealand Grand Prix winner, has yet to race in a Supercar, but has proved very quick in the national V8 championship.

Porter is in his second season in the Australian Konica champs, this season driving a Holden similar to Team Kiwi's car. Last season in a Ford he finished fourth and drove in the Bathurst 1000 with Geoff Full, running well until forced into the wall by another car.

The Konica championship has already been won by Mark Winterbottom of the Stone Brothers Ford team, but Porter can still take second place.

The next round is at Mallala, South Australia, from August 30-31.

The Melbourne 500 takes place at Sandown on September 12-14, and the 1000 will be run at Mt Panorama, Bathurst, from October 9-12.

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Rally driver Marty Roestenburg has set himself the target of being fit for the final round of the Top Half championship at Hamilton at the end of next month.

From his hospital bed in Whangarei, the ebullient Aucklander remains positive, despite the pain from a vertebra damaged in a high-speed crash on Saturday.

Roestenburg was leading the Rally of the North by more than a minute when his Mitsubishi failed to take a left-hand bend in a special stage near Moerewa. He and co-driver Greg Harnett had to be cut from the car and flown to hospital.

Harnett was discharged from hospital yesterday, still very sore from heavy bruising. Roestenburg is likely to be in hospital for six weeks.

He believes he misheard a safety note from his co-driver and powered into a corner, which was sharper than he expected.

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National Formula Ford champion Jonny Reid has come back to form with a vengeance in the Australian Formula 4000 championship.

Competing at Winton in Victoria, the 19-year-old Aucklander qualified quickest and led both races from start to finish.

The 40 points he gained have moved him to equal second place behind runaway leader Nelson Hartley, from Palmerston North.

Hartley failed to finish both races because of engine problems.

Another New Zealand teenager, Daniel Gaunt, finished second in the first race, but failed to finish the second. Veteran Kenny Smith struggled with an uncompetitive car.

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Auckland-based Tranzam driver John McIntyre took pole position and won the first race at Winton. In qualifying, he recorded the fastest-ever lap time for a sports sedan at the twisty circuit.

He finished the first race with the engine running on only seven cylinders and it could not be repaired in time to race again. He has slipped to second in the Transtasman Challenge standings.

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New Zealander Paul Radisich will be reunited with one of his rivals from the British touring car championship when he competes in the Supercar endurance races at Sandown and Bathurst.

Briggs Motorsport announced yesterday that they had secured Rickard Rydell to partner Radisich in the Team Betta Electrical BA Falcon car.

The Swede drove for Volvo in Britain and now competes for the same marque in the European touring car championship.

Rickard raced a Volvo in the two-litre series at Bathurst in 1997, setting a qualifying record time for the Mountain circuit.

Radisich, who is 10th in the Supercar championship, has yet to win at Bathurst.

Greg Murphy's Kmart Holden team have signed another European touring car championship star, Andy Priaulx, to drive their second car in the endurance races. Murphy, twice a winner at Bathurst and third this season in the Supercar championship, will team with Rick Kelly in one car and Priaulx will be joined by Australian Cameron McLean in the other.