Teretonga Park will witness the penultimate MINI Challenge

After a great comeback in round five of the MINI Challenge at Timaru International Motor Raceway, championship leader "Fast Eddie" Bell will need to be vigilant amongst the Southern Men at Teretonga Park this weekend.

The MINI Challenge arrives at the racing circuit near Invercargill for round six of seven rounds, so the pressure will be on amongst all the drivers to retain or better their positions.

It will be the first time the seventeen MINI Cooper S cars fitted with John Cooper works race kits will race on the 2.57 kilometre circuit which is the pride and joy of the Southland Sports Car Club who are hosting the Mike Perot Motorsport series meeting.

Hailing from Woodend in North Canterbury, Bell in the ESWA MINI leads the MINI Challenge by a slim margin of 41 points over Timaru local Brett "Bones" Collins in second place.

However Collins will front up in the PDL MINI at Teretonga Park with an even slimmer margin of seven points separating him from the much experienced MINI Challenge International driver (and former Christchurch resident) Peter Sharmach in third place.

Sharmach’s distinctive Blue WPS Diggalink MINI has seen more hits than the Beatles during the last five rounds of the MINI Challenge, his distinctive driving style utilises all of the track and sometimes a bit more, which pleases the audience but not always his fellow competitors.

Bell, Collins and Sharmach all share reward ballast of 50 kilos each in their MINI Cooper S racing cars but this does not seem to have unduly affected their performance so far.

Fourth overall in the MINI Challenge and looking for a much better performance this weekend will be Gavin "The Enforcer" Dawson in the Scalextric MINI.

Dawson was plagued by brake system problems at Timaru which relegated him further down the pack than he is normally seen, leaving The Enforcer itching to make amends.

Driving the Teng Tools MINI, a delighted Motorsport Services driver Will Selles finished third overall in the Timaru round last weekend elevating him to fifth overall in the championship.

Fellow Motorsport Services team member Kevin Cantwell who drives the Visual Group MINI holds sixth place by a mere five points from International Motorsport young gun Anthony Pedersen in the J A Russell Powerbase MINI.

Pedersen admits that he didn’t have the greatest luck at the Timaru or Manfeild rounds but the Rotorua student has taken his first season of saloon car racing in good stride and will be putting his best foot forward in Invercargill

Qualifying gets under way on Saturday 9^th March at 10.10am with the first MINI Challenge race scheduled for 2.25pm that afternoon

2007 MINI Challenge

Current driver points as at 07/03/07 after five rounds:

Pos MINI# Name/Hometown                 Total Points

1  69    Eddie Bell Nth Canterbury   882
2  44    Brent Collins Timaru        841
3  27    Peter Sharmach Australia    835
4  50    Gavin Dawson Auckland       683
5  2     Will Selles Auckland        621
6  6     Kevin Cantwell Kohimarama   607
7  96    Anthony Pedersen Rotorua    602
8  3     Jeff Hogg Whangaparaoa      590
9  10    Richard Moore Auckland      573
10 52    Gary Johnstone Christchurch 482
11 77    Neil Foster Rotorua         473
12 30    Wayne Timms Christchurch    465
13 20    Ross Hill Auckland          381
14 11    Gavin Yortt Hawkes Bay      370
15 22    David Grigor Auckland       366
16 88    Anthony Houston Auckland    361
17 99    Shaun Turton Pukekohe       336

MINI Challenge 2007

Round Six: 9-11 March 2007 Teretonga

Round Seven: 20-22 April 2007 Pukekohe

This release was prepared on behalf of MINI Challenge 2007 (www.minichallenge.co.nz) by Robert Barry