By BOB PEARCE
Auckland driver Jason Richards heads for Australia at the weekend to start what promises to be the most challenging year of his career.
Fresh from retaining the national touring car championship in a Nissan Primera, Richards will be driving for Team Kiwi during their first season in the Australian V8 Supercar championship.
First up are the support races to the Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne's Albert Park street circuit from March 1. The championship proper starts at Phillip Island on March 24.
Team Kiwi made a one-off appearance last year in the endurance classic at Bathurst, finishing a respectable 16th. A full season of sprint races will test the new team's resourcefulness.
"This is going to be tough, tough, tough," says Richards. "I'm going straight out of Nissans to take on the cream of the competitors on a street circuit I don't know. But I've got to just go and do it.
"I've got faith that with the team we've got we'll make a reasonable showing. We didn't stick out like new kids on the block at Bathurst."
Richards is expecting to drive the team's new car, which was used by Russell Ingall last season. It has been prepared by the Larry Perkins Team for Team Kiwi. By the time of the Adelaide street races Team Kiwi will also run a car for their second driver, Angus Fogg.
At the Grand Prix meeting Richards and Team Kiwi will compete in a specially invited field. At other meetings they will have to qualify for one of the 32 places on the grid. To have a chance of finishing in the top 10 they will have to qualify in the first half of the field.
"Luckily I've usually been good at setting qualifying times in the first two or three laps," says Richards. "There will be pressure on us to finish for the exposure but also to learn as much as possible about the tracks.
"Bathurst and Pukekohe are the only championship tracks I know so it will be a big learning experience all season."
* * *
Peugeot, which won the manufacturer and driver titles on its return to the full championship last season, could hardly have made a worse start to this season's world championship rallies.
After the Monte Carlo and Swedish rounds of the 14-round championship, the French manufacturer has yet to register a point. World champion Marcus Gronholm did not finish either event.
The Swedish Rally was won by Finn Harri Rovanpera in a Peugeot, but he had not been registered to score manufacturer points.
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Kawerau rider Tony Rees was third overall after the first round of the Tristate Formula Extreme championship at Sydney's Eastern Creek circuit over the weekend.
Riding his Yamaha R1, Rees had a second, two thirds and a fourth placing.
Four more rounds remain to be raced.
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Competitors in the International Rally of Rotorua face a tough first day on June 29 on some of the toughest rallying roads in the country.
They will start from the headquarters in Rotorua at 1.45 pm and tour 130km to Opotiki. They will then contest the notoriously difficult Motu in two stages of around 20km with no chance for a service in between.
The third stage of the day will be the 32km of Whakarua before another tour back to parc ferme in Rotorua shortly before midnight.
The Parker Enzed event, a round of the Asia Pacific championship, will head next day for a series of forest stages around Kawerau. The final day will be on Rotorua County roads south of the city.
* * *
British driver Johnny Herbert, who was dropped by the Jaguar team after last season, has signed as test and development driver for Arrows.
Herbert had been mentioned as a possibility for the United States Champ Car drive Scott Dixon has with PacWest.
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