R-Tek was formed at the end of 2006 by former Australian Formula 2 Champion Ian Richards.
Richards, a talented engineer joins Sir Jack Brabham as one of very few drivers to win a Championship in a car of his own design and construction.
He was contracted by the South Australian Government to contribute to the TAFE program to design and race a car of its own design, the SHRIKE
project.

Since retiring as a driver in 1995, Ian Richards has been working professionally as a race engineer in Australia and New Zealand for both Formula 3
and Formula Toyato teams.

He engineered Karl Reindler in 2003 and 2004 in his Australian Formula 3 Championship winning year and has worked with Peter Hackett, James
Manderson, (2002 Championship) Ian Dyke, Neil McFayden, Darren Palmer, Ben Clucas (2006 Champion) and more recently Tim Macrow (2007
Champion) and Sam Sofi.

He also engineered the American West sports prototype that dominated the Australian Thundersport Championships in 2007 driven by Tom Drewer.
Ian has won the Australasian Engineering Albert Ludgate Award, the CAMS Phil Erving award an has been awarded a Certificate of Merit by Minister
for Recreation and Sport.