Five drivers apply for the chance to take part in the Production class of the Repco Rally New Zealand.

Five New Zealand rally drivers have applied for a chance to take on the world's best Production World Rally Championship teams in the August running of Repco Rally New Zealand.

Rally New Zealand, as the organisation behind the event, provides two scholarships to help foster opportunities for New Zealand rally drivers on the world stage, with each scholarship comprising of a fully-paid wildcard entry into the PWRC class of the event and a specially-allocated service area for the driver's team within the PWRC service park. The entry fee alone is worth €3,500.

The service park location offers important opportunities our rising stars to make themselves better known to P-WRC teams and talent scouts, says Chris Carr, chairman of Repco Rally New Zealand.

"Drivers running in the PWRC are frequently signed for the full FIA World Rally Championship, so this is a very important opportunity for our young drivers to get themselves known by world rally teams," Rally New Zealand chairman Chris Carr said. "You can't really place a dollar value on having this chance to mix and mingle with teams already racing at world championship level.

"A number of significant people in the sport, such as Marc de Jong, the director of commercial development for the P-WRC, watch what's going on in New Zealand's rally scene. The awareness of Kiwi rallying talent goes back to the days of Possum Bourne, and earlier, and although we don't currently have a Kiwi of Possum's calibre competing on the world stage, we know several key people keep an eye on New Zealand's rising stars. So scholarships such as this provide another avenue for our young drivers to prove themselves and hopefully forge a career in world rallying."

While any New Zealand driver running an eligible car can enter Repco Rally New Zealand, as wildcard entries in the PWRC class the two scholarship winners will be seeded amongst the PWRC runners, not the New Zealand Rally Championship entrants.

"This means they start much further up the running order," Carr added. "It offers them a chance to really test themselves against world-class competitors in equivalent machinery."

Chris West, Stewart Taylor, Hayden Paddon and teenagers Andre Meier and Sloan Cox are the five to have applied for the scholarship.