32 year old Indian industrialist Naren Kumar from Coimbatore is to be the driver for the Team Sidvin Subaru entry in the 2008 Production Car Championship starting with Acropolis Rally. Coimbatore may by Indian standards be a small town but it has produced most of the big names in Indian motorsport - including the Formula 1 driver Narain Karthikeyan .

Already six times national rally champion, Kumar is not new to international motor sport, having competed in the Asia Zone series for many years and in 2007 he finished fifth in the FIA's Asia Pacific regional series. "This is my big break, the world championship is somewhere I have already wanted to be", he has told friends. Kumar himself has a casting foundry business and is strongly supported by a Bangalore based friend Mohan who runs the Sidvin oil exploration company, who himself is a former rally driver. The Italian preparation company Motoring Club are running the car built by Tommi Makinen Racing. Kumar's codriver will be Nicky Beech knowned to us from 2003 when he was codriving Hamed Al Wahaibi.

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Photo1: Naren testing in his Impreza N14
Photo2: Naren with fellow Motoring Club driver Jari Ketomaa along with Orense, the owner of the practice car, and "Birillo", the Club's mascot pet
Photo3: Naren practicing fast-wheel changing on the personal transport of Motoring Club proprietor Gabriele Favero