Pitstop: Bad luck dogs Dixon

Scott Dixon. Photo / Sharon Ellman

New Zealand IndyCar driver Scott Dixon's bad luck continues in the series. He was wrongly pinged for jumping the restart at the latest round of the series in Milwaukee. Race director Beaux Barfield said a combination of human and a computer glitch were responsible for Dixon mistakenly being issued with a drive-through penalty.

Paddon mentors Holder
Production world rally champion Hayden Paddon and his management company are extending a helping hand to young up-and-coming rally driver David Holder. Paddon will provide mentoring and guidance.

Milestone for World Rally
This weekend's Brother Rally New Zealand marks the 500th round of the World Rally Championship. The first event was held in Monte Carlo in 1973 and it first visited New Zealand in 1977. Teams from 22 different countries are based at Auckland's Viaduct Events Centre for this year's event.

Hulme's laps of honour
The New Zealand Festival of Motor Racing celebrating Denny Hulme will take place at Hampton Downs over two weekends in January. A number of the big Can-Am cars will be bellowing around the circuit honouring Hulme's success in the class. He won in 1968 and 1970 and was runner up in 1967, 1969 and 1971.

Radisich steps down
Former two-time World Touring Champion Paul Radisich has stepped down from his role as V8 SuperTourers CEO for business reasons.

Under the hood
Formula One this season has been a joy to watch with seven winners from seven races and some pretty good names haven't stood on top of the podium yet. This lottery of winners is partly due to the category not changing the rules too much during the off-season. In 2014 it's all going to change again when the new turbo charged V6 engine is introduced.

Rather than holding the cost back, it's likely to raise the cost of going racing. Renault, Ferrari and Mercedes have spent a total of about $800 million on engine development so far.