[Pete.]

Tasman Motorsport’s Jason Richards has swapped machines ahead of this week’s V8 Supercar round at Queensland Raceway and is promising to “tear up the circuit”.

Last week Richards publicly criticised the track, labelling it “mind numbing” and suggesting its designers had done a poor job.

“Driving Queensland Raceway in the past has been as painful as pulling teeth, but now I reckon I could really dig the place,” Richards said.

The 30-year-old today swapped his Tasman Motorsport Holden Commodore V8 Supercar for a Cavallo Earthworks 20-tonne Sumitomo excavator.

“After last week’s controversies we’ve had a really big think about how best to attack the track and with the 20-tonner we’ve now got a machine that we can really tear up the place with!”

Richards said it was possible to make the track more interesting with the excavator than the Commodore.

“I’ve had some serious ups and downs there in the past, but with a machine like this we could put in some hills, a few more curves, give the place some character which it desperately needs