Top Melbourne operation Eggleston Motorsport has signed Justin Ruggier to its Kumho Tyres Australian V8 Touring Car Series stable.
Ruggier has an extensive background in iRacing, winning a Sydney competition in 2007 with the Williams F1 team for which he travelled to Valencia and raced karts against Nico Rosberg and other competition winners before winning the event overall.
With experience in Aussie Racing Cars, production cars and tests in Formula 3 and Formula Ford open wheelers, the six-times state and two-times national karting champ Ruggier is ready to take the plunge in what will be his touring car debut.
He will drive an ex-HSV Dealer Team Commodore VZ in the series which uses ex-V8 Supercars and begins on ANZAC weekend at Mallala, South Australia.
The Commodore was used by Rick Kelly to win the 2006 V8 Supercars Championship and also finished runner-up at that year's Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000 with brother Todd co-driving.
Tony D'Alberto also took the car to victory in the 2007 V8 Supercars Development Series.
“I take my racing very seriously in all the categories and look forward to this enormous challenge that is ahead of me in the Australian V8 Touring Car Series with Eggleston Motorsport,” Ruggier said.
“It is very satisfying that after all these years people have put faith in me to continue racing with competitive teams.”
The 2014 Kumho Tyres Australian V8 Touring Car Series will begin at Mallala Motorsport Park in South Australia on April 26-27 as part of the Shannons Australian Motor Racing Nationals.