The European MotoGP season kicks off with this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez where an estimated 250,000 fans will attend. Australian Casey Stoner arrives at Jerez leading the world championship but will have his work cut out. Sunday's 27-lap race will provide a challenge for Stoner asValentino Rossi and Dani Pedrosa dominated the official test season and hope to keep that up in the race after finishing second and third behind Stoner in Qatar.
Help for Asia series
Sixteen-year-old karter Ben Dallas has been chosen as a recipient of a US$50,000 ($72,840) scholarship to race in the Formula BMW Asia series. Dallas is the third young New Zealander to earn one of the five US$50,000 awards after an invitational drive in Bahrain.
Possum car returns
This year's Silverstone Race to the Sky in the Cardrona Valley at Easter will showcase the ex-works Group A 555 Subaru Impreza bought by Possum Bourne in 1996 for his assault on the Australian Rally Championship. The car has been bought from its Paraguayan owner by Stu Webber who crewed for Bourne when he owned it. It was sold by Bourne in 2000 to a rally driver in Argentina where it won two championship events before ending up in Paraguay. Webber is confident the Subaru will be almost ready to go when it arrives and still has an old bonnet and other parts he will fit to the car as well as painting it in its original colours.
Reid in black beauty
Jonny Reid is back in the hot seat for this weekend's round of the A1GP held at the Autodromo Hermanous Rodriguez in Mexico City. The second-placed Black Beauty team will aim to eat into the 30-point gap Germany has in the series. A1 Team New Zealand hope to capitalise on the absence of the flying Nico Hulkenberg and put some pressure on rookie 17-year-old German driver Christian Vietoris.
***
The winner of the second round of the US rally championship, Ken Block, will compete in the Hella International Rally of Whangarei on May 11 to 13. He and regular co-driver Alessandro Gelsomino will compete in a left-hand-drive group N Subaru WRX STI prepared by Sam Murray's Fram Racing team. The rally will include a ceremonial start and finish at the Quayside town basin and two super special stages on Pohe Island are planned.
