Pitstop: Karters off to Hawkes Bay

Hawkes Bay hosts top karters from New Zealand and Australia at the Quality Inn Napier 2010 KartSport New Zealand National Sprint Championships at Fernhill's ZM Kart Raceway this weekend. Ten class titles will be fought over the three-day sprint national's event and this year's meeting has attracted four drivers from across the Tasman.

Rally goes below sea level

The World Rally Championship hits the dirt again for round three of the 13-event series at the Jordan Rally. The event is based 420m below sea level by the Dead Sea and defending world champion Sebastien Loeb will be hoping to extend his six-point lead over Mikko Hirvonen.

King takes tilt at worlds

Former world motocross runner-up Kiwi Darryll King is having another tilt at a world crown. This time he's going for the veteran's motocross world championship and is first getting into the groove in Australia. European date changes have allowed King to race in the Aussie national champs which begin tomorrow.

F1 rolls on to Sepang

With barely time to take a breath, the F1 circus gets into action again at the Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang. Hot on the heels of an exciting, by Bahrain standards, Australian Grand Prix, drivers and fans will be looking for more close racing. Red Bull Racing cars are the fastest but it's Jenson Button who stole a march last weekend and Michael Schumacher continues to prove he should be on the grid.

A1GP assets up for grabs

She's all over rover for the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport. The appointed liquidators have put up assets of the former global motor racing series and 20 Ferrari-engineered cars are up for grabs - with 12 of the early series' Zytek-powered cars. There's also a shed-load of spares and team equipment available.

UNDER THE HOOD:

Racing reflections
We all take the rear-vision mirror for granted, but a car manufacturer didn't invent it. Ray Harroun fitted a mirror to his Marmon race car for the first Indianapolis 500 race in 1911. Up until then the cars had two people, a driver and a mechanic who would look behind to see if anyone was about to pass them. Harroun drove the race on his own so thought to use a mirror to see what was happening behind him and duly won the race. He gave credit for his idea to seeing the driver of a horse-drawn carriage using a hand-held mirror in 1904.