After a hiatus of two years 2014 champion Andrew Howell returns to MG Racing at the opening round of 2019 in his championship winning MG ZR.
Howell’s forced hiatus due to combination of work and health saw him take a back step and support his son Rhys motorsport plans, “There were many reasons but it allowed me to support Rhys and commit to the opportunities that were presented to him. We had a solid season in the GT-R followed by the Gallardo and in between the Bathurst 12 Hour and I really enjoyed giving it 100% to support him but not it’s time to get back in the saddle”.
Howell will jump into the car that he claimed the 2014 championship with after a minor refresh, the MG ZR Judd which was built by the MG factory in the early 2000’s. “The car is essentially as we last ran it, the Judd engine, sequential, and still resplendent in the Xpower Sport & Racing livery from it’s works days”. Howell won’t get a chance to test so is hoping to find his groove as quick as possible, “Hopefully it comes back pretty quickly but it will be great just to be there out with everyone again and if we get a decent result then brilliant”.
Howell is hoping to run the year with son Rhys in MG Racing as well, “I really want to get back to racing and like many parents you want to share your passion with your kids, I am lucky Rhys loves cars and loves racing so the aim for 2018 is to get out and race together and MG Racing is the perfect class to do that, the racing is fun, fair, hard and clean”. The Howell family have three eligible cars and all very unique however they are unsure which combination they will run.
“We have the original race car we built, the MG B that we ran a number of years ago with a 2 litre injected B series engine and 5 speed gearbox which may make an appearance, there is the Judd which is very sentimental to us, it has a huge history in the UK and was the car of it’s kind built by the factory and now it has a championship over here as well. Then we have the latest project which has been a long term re-build. The SV-R which again is a very unique car but we will share that later on. Hopefully we have all three running and can run all of them during 2019 at some point@.
It will be great to see the number 91 on track again!
