NZ Touring Car Championship 2000

CENTENNIAL PARK RACEWAY, TAUPO
28th December 1999

Qualifying Times
How the cars performed in qualifying
Race Results
Results directly from the track

Race Timetable
Find out when the cars are on the track
Trackside Weather
Updated Daily by Yahoo!
The NZ 2.0 litre Touring Car Photo Gallery
Selected pics from the meeting
Take a Spin Around the Pukekohe Circuit
On board for a lap round the track

Richards Takes Qualifying
by Tony Bunyan

Jason Richards in the BNT BMW 320i returned to the track on Monday with avengence to easily secure pole position for the first of three races scheduled for Tuesday.

The weather and track temperature were almost perfect for the afternoons qualifying session. In a performance reminiscent of his old team mate Craig Baird, Richards waited patiently before blasting onto the track with a warm-up and one quick decisive lap. His time of 42.62 sec didn't beat his track record race time of 42.12 sec, but still managed to separate him by over half a second from next quickest, Geoff Short in the Lexus IS 200..

"The lap wasn't flawless, Jason still had plenty left, but it was plenty fast enough and we were happy to conserve the tyres for race day", a delighted Martin Collins, pit crew chief for International Motorsport New Zealand commented.

Richards Makes it a Hat Trick
by Tony Bunyan

Defending New Zealand Touring Car Champion Jason Richards showed his winning talent by making a clean sweep of the three races at the opening round of the 2000 Wynns New Zealand 2.0 litre Touring Car Summer Championship held at Centennial Park in Taupo.

	His three straight wins give him almost twice as many points as his nearest rival in the Championship, Angus Fogg. Fogg, who is experienced and fast, will campaign the ex-Bart Simpson Nissan Bluebird this season.
Richards & the BMW Brains Trust discuss strategy

After his BMW monopoly breaking drive to snatch the NZRDC Winter Cup in 1999 Fogg must be considered Richard's biggest threat. Despite this he has a huge catch-up job if he is to overhaul Richards's points lead.

Kevin Bell who won the 1999 LK Drivesafe 500 along with distance driving partner Rod Hicks drove the second of International Motorsport's BMW 320is to put him into third place overall. A good start after having to make the transition from the NZGP Formula Holden open wheeler he has recently campaigned.

After an excellent showing in its first outing at the LK Drivesafe 500, Geoff Short's Lexus IS200 was also expected to give the BMWs a run for their money. The weekend certainly started well for the team who had the services of a kiwi engineer working for the BAR Formula One Team and an engineer from Australia's Stone Brothers V8 Super Cars Team. Qualifying second on the grid, followed by a second and third in the first two races gave Short an excellent start. Unfortunately a tangle with sometime teammate Barrie Thomlinson ended his third race on lap ten and with it a healthy points tally.

Always entertaining, bad boy of the meeting was Barrie Thomlinson who first tangled with Kevin Bell in the second race, only to cop a five second penalty for sending Geoff Short off in the third race. To add insult to injury he used Short's Ford Telstar to do it!