Top 10 for 2010

Casting aside the misfortunes of round two prior to the Christmas break, this weekend BNTV8s driver Nick Ross heads to Invercargill's Teretonga Park Raceway confident of starting the new year by clocking up solid points and making his way up into the top 10 in the championship.

"We know how fast we were at Ruapuna but things just didn't go our way, hopefully this weekend we'll get the results we know we are capable of." said the driver from Cambridge.

At the Powerbuilt International Raceway in Ruapuna, Ross was well on his way for his first podium of the season when late in race three he was knocked out of second place and off the track by another driver after the circuit was hit by a rainstorm.

Although the trying weekend didn't go their way, the team went home confident of being strong through the remainder of the season when seeing just how competitive the car was at Ruapuna and also at Pukekohe previously in the month.

"We did some corporate hotlaps the other day and the car feels really good, we know we have the package and it just gets better and better, now we just need to turn that into points." says Ross.

Being the world's most southern circuit, Teretonga Park is renowned for it's unpredictable weather and conditions can change at the drop of a hat often throwing the drivers numerous challenges to contend with all in one weekend.

"It's the track with 24 seasons in one day!" says Ross. "But it has the best turn one in the country and I enjoy driving there, I'm very much looking forward to getting down there and getting on with it."

Each round brings Ross and the Concept Motorsport crew more speed as they continually improve their race package and they know the car is capable of making the top 10 shootout.

Unfortunately they have twice very narrowly missed it, firstly at Pukekohe by just 0.175 of a second and Ruapuna by the incredibly slim margin of 0.040 after being caught out on used tyres.

Although this season has proved to be the toughest BNTV8s battle thus far, the chances of getting into the shootout and getting a good solid start from near the front of the grid for race one at Teretonga would appear to be excellent.

"This weekend we will be aiming at getting the car into the shootout and then going on from there,it should be a good weekend for us with all our bad luck behind us." says Ross.

Practice sessions, qualifying and the exciting top 10 shootout take place this Saturday 16th January with all three races held on Sunday 17th.

Television coverage of Saturday's shootout and the three races will be shown on TV3 Sunday the 17th hosted by Shaun Summerfield and Greg Murphy.

This weekend's racing is immediately followed by round four at Timaru International Motor Raceway next weekend 23-24th before the teams head back up to the North Island for round five at Manfeild Autocourse on February 13-14.

The final round is March 20-21 held at Taupo Motorsport Park but is followed by a non-championship event within the ITM 400 at Hamilton providing support races for the V8 Supercars on April 16-18.