Cusco and Kiwi driver Mike Young are looking to pick up where they left off in the APRC, with a plan to contest the Japanese qualifying rounds ahead of the November APRC final in Coffs Harbour.

In 2019, the last time a full APRC season was contested, Young was the odds-on favourite to win his first APRC Championship title, having won multiple APRC Junior, 2WD, Production and Asia Cup titles since 2014. But electrical problems with his Cucso Toyota C-HR APR-4 eventually forced his retirement from the 2019 APRC final, handing the title to Chinese-Taipei driver Lin Dewei.

Having moved from Perth back to New Zealand, Young has been in regular contact with Cusco, planning a comeback for both Young and the Japanese motorsport team. Assuming travel between Japan and New Zealand remains open, Young will possibly drive the Cusco Toyota C-HR at June’s Rally Montre and September’s Rally Hokkaido.

In the meantime Young will be jump back into the SAS Subaru Impreza this weekend’s Rally Otago, the car he used last year in the New Zealand Rally Championship. “I did the Lawrence Rally at the end of last year, just to get a taste of the Southland roads, and even though it was a blind rally we managed to finish second overall. So I’m happy that with (pace) notes we’ll be close to the pace. Otago is a rally that every driver wants to do and especially this year when it runs on the roads near Middlemarch.”

Cusco is backing Young’s NZRC campaign too and is planning to ship one of their Cusco-built Subaru’s in time for the Auckland waterfront-based Repco WRC Rally of New Zealand at the end of September.