P-WRC champion co-driver Tony Sircombe retires

Reigning P-WRC champion co-driver Tony Sircombe has announced his retirement from professional competition in order to concentrate on business interests.

His place alongside Toshi Arai will be taken in 2008 by Australian Glenn MacNeall, 35, former co-driver for Chris Atkinson. The pair will start the season together on the Swedish Rally.

Sircombe, 47, has been active at top level rallying for over 20 years and is easily New Zealand’s most experienced competitor in world championship rallying.

The list of Tony's drivers represents a who's-who of top drivers of the age, including Rod Millen (with whom he was Asia Pacific champion and SCCA champion in 1998 as well as finishing second on the world championship NZ Rally that year), Possum Bourne (with whom he was Asia Pacific champion in 1994), Yoshio Fujimoto, and Hamed al Wahaibi (with whom he won the Group N category on three world rallies in 1999). Since the end of 2001 as co-driver to Toshi Arai, he gained world PCWRC titles in 2005 and 2007.

MacNeall and Arai are no strangers, having contested the world championship series together in 2001. MacNeall also partnered Arai on two Asia Pacific championship rallies in 2007.