Triple X Motorsport drivers Earl Bamber (Wanganui), Stefan Webling (New Plymouth) and Chris Wootton (Brisbane) start the five round Toyota Racing Series this weekend at Invercargill’s Teretonga Park Raceway (15-17 January).
The world’s most southern race venue, based eight kilometres west of the city, Teretonga’s 2.61 kilometre circuit begins the first full championship for the Auckland team, who run five Porsche 997 cars and a Suzuki Swift.

While Bamber and Webling have past experience in the Toyota cars, Wootton’s fresh experience in Asia ranks him as a top race place contender, bolstered by engineer Greg Wheeler, formerly with the Williams F1 Team and A1GP Malaysia.
 “Having Earl as a team-mate is a great yardstick,” said 21-year-old Wootton.  “I am looking forward to the challenge of racing against him and hopefully beating him!”

“The Toyota Racing Series gives us a chance to race across the summer and prepare for the remainder of the year. The schedule’s fantastic because we’re doing five events in a very short period of time.”

“Getting seat time and race miles are critical to improving and the TRS will certainly provide that. Having tough inter-team competition will also ensure I am at the top of my game.”

Having never raced in New Zealand, each of two South Island and three North Island circuits will be new to the part-time personal trainer.

“I go in fairly blind in terms of the circuits we’ll be racing on as obviously I haven’t raced there before and I haven’t been able to get onto a computer simulation, but learning new circuits is something I enjoy and in reality, it’s part of the thrill of racing.”

 “With the test drive in the Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup car as the major prize – and outstanding prize money being offered right throughout the Series – it’s an excellent opportunity,” said Wootton of the incentive to win the New Zealand based series.

“There’s absolutely no doubt it’s going to be tough. The series from what I’ve seen is very similar to Formula BMW in that all the cars are very even, which makes for some close racing. From a sponsorship point of view, TRS is very well setup and you can take sponsors to the events and host them comfortably.”

Having won the 2009 New Zealand Grand Prix with driver Daniel Gaunt, team manager Ian McNabb says the Triple X Motorsport focus is on victory:  “We’re intent on winning the overall title and defending the Grand Prix crown – giving each of the drivers as much experience as possible by sharing data.  We’ve gone from dipping our toe in the water to a proper swim.”

A1 Team New Zealand mechanic Mark Pilcher will look after the three Triple X Motorsport Toyota cars that share technical expertise and management with a team that has cars contesting the Battery Town Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge and Suzuki Swift Sport Cup.

With the series officially starting on Friday 15 January, the Toyota trio will have two 30 minute practise sessions before Saturday’s race weekend qualifying. Championship point scoring starts with a 16-lap race Saturday afternoon, Southland's 16-lap historic "spirit of a nation" trophy race Sunday morning and a 12-lap finale that afternoon.
The second round follows a week later, held at Timaru’s Levels raceway (22-24 January).