February 2010

Former race driver, Australian champion and now race team principal, Ian Richards , has received a rare Phil Irving Award at the CAMS (Confederation of Australian Motor Sports) presentation night.

The South Australian particularly made his name in Formula 2, the open-whell race category that was a premier formula of Australian motor racing in its era. He won the 1983 Australian F2 championship in a car he built, a Richards 201, powered by an engine based on that of the VW Golf. Designing an building an open-wheel racing car in which he won a key national championship is a feat unlikely to be repeated.

The award has been bestowed to only three other people - in 1994 to racing car transmission guru Peter Hollinger, in 2003 to the engineering design brains involved in the Brabham race cars, Ron Tauranac, and in 2007 to Neal Bates a multiple Australian Rally champion and Toyota rally cars creator.

Richards, with his handlebar moustache, is an identity at motorsport meetings. For the past few years, he has run R-Tek with cars in Formula 3 - the fastest circuit-racing category in Australia. R-Tek's workshops, overseen by Richards, are at Wingfield, in Adelaide's north. The award honors Irving, a ground-breaking engineer who brought concepts to reality and ultimately faster racing cars.

Article by Stuart Innes in The Advertiser - Saturday, Feb 20th, 2010

January 2010

R-Tek motorsport are currently seeking expressions of interest for either sale or lease of our race ready F304 Dallara Spiess Formula 3 race cars.

Compete in Australia's Premier Championship series in 2010, incorporating 24 races over 8 championship rounds across Australia.
Give yourself the opportunity to complete at the highest level with a top flight race team with over 30 year experience.

Contact Ian Richards for a comprehensive price break down and get a pleasant surprise at the cost effectiveness of competing in the Premier Australian Championship compared to other lesser National series.


November 2008

Adelaide based Formula 3 team R-Tek Motorsport Services has been selected to re-build and service Spiess Formula 3 engines in Australia.

The famous engine company that develops the Opel based 2 litre power plant has previously required all engines to be returned to its German factory for service and re-build upon completion of the normal competition life..
The new deal between Spiess and R-Tek Motorsport Services will result in a considerable cost saving to teams using the motor in the Australian Formula 3 Championship.

‘I met with Spiess Tuning at the recent Macau Grand Prix and concluded the deal, which will also include Spiess sending one of their tuning technicians to Australia to supervise our initial re-building program’, R-Tek Motorsport Services owner Ian Richards said today.

‘We are in the final stages of completing a fully air conditioned dedicated engine room in our race shop to handle the Spiess service contract which will also include dyno runs for each re-built engine’, Richards added.

The race engine cylinder heads will be re-built in Germany on an exchange basis, but all other work will be done by R-Tek in Adelaide using components supplied by Spiess working to their exact specifications.

To ensure equal performance levels R-Tek will not have the factory code access to the management system with all customer engines to be dyno run using the client’s ECU (Engine Management Unit).

‘We are doing final costings at this stage, but with lower labour rates, less in freight costs, and the fluctuating exchange rate, we are confident over saving Spiess powered Australian Formula 3 teams many thousands of dollars over the course of a season’ Richards said.