TKR will be at Phillip Island

Team Kiwi Racing and its car supplier Stone Brothers Racing say the all-black Ford Falcon V8 Supercar will be on the grid for the final round of the 2007 Australian series at Phillip Island, near Melbourne, this weekend.

Both denied rumours circulating within the New Zealand motor racing community that the #021 Ford had been withdrawn from the round.

The rumours, which were spreading like wildfire through the NZ V8s paddock at Ruapuna last weekend, say the car wouldn’t be on the grid this weekend because TKR wasn’t fully up to date with its payments to Stone Brothers (SBR).

SBR team manager Ross Stone told Auto Trader on Tuesday afternoon that the Shane Van Gisbergen-driven Falcon will be at the Island.

“It will be there,” he said. “We have four trucks and they all left (the outfit’s Brisbane base) here yesterday at lunchtime.”

TKR owner, David John, told Auto Trader: “we will be 100 per cent there.”

“That rumour is another one to add to the list. I don’t know where these stupid rumours come from – I heard this one myself earlier in the week.

“All our major sponsors have signed on for next year (among them) Ford, Dunlop, Makita. All the big boys – 3M, BNT.”

Asked whether TKR was up to date with payments to Stone Brothers racing, John said: “absolutely. If we weren’t we wouldn’t have been at the last race and we wouldn’t be turning up (at Phillip Island).

“I think that these people who are coming up with (rumours) all the time…someone needs to point the finger at them.

“We have paid our way. We’re still here, we’re still running, Shane is still in the car and our sponsors have signed up again.

“It wouldn’t go astray sometime for someone to back us up a bit,” John said.

“It makes it all 10 times harder when people make these accusations all the time.

“I’ll be glad to see the back of this year.”