Howell secures late Halfords call-up.

The Dunlop MSA British Touring Car entry list has the #25 Team Halfords Honda Integra as 'TBA', but Gareth Howell will at least start the season in the car after getting a late call-up from team boss Steve Neal.

Howell, who joined the 2005 season at Knockhill and went on to secure an emotional maiden BTCC win at Silverstone, was widely expected to form part of the team line-up for the coming year, but as time ticked down to the start of racing, the chances of him appearing in a third Integra appeard to be disappearing.

However a late call from Neal means Howell will now compete in the opening four meetings of the year at Brands Hatch, Mondello Park, Oulton Park and Thruxton - with the aim being to find the necessary budget to keep him in the car for the remainder of the season.

"At the moment I can only go on what I was told by Steve," he told Crash.Net Radio. "He called me up at 5 o'clock on Friday and I was sitting there thinking 'I'm not going to look at the internet on the media day because it will depress me', and he said we want you to come along to Brands Hatch, have your picture taken with the class of 2006 and we want to start the season with you.

"We'll see how things go from there and play it by ear, but the hope is that we can get prospective sponsors down who will hopefully see us winning and we can show them how good the whole show is and they will give us the backing to complete the season with three cars.

"We've earmarked the opening four rounds which is good for me - one more than last year so I'm going up year-by-year! There are a couple of irons in the fire sponsor wise at the moment from people who haven't quite made their mind up and if a few of them come in then I might even do a full season for the first time in god knows how long!"

Howell will be eager to try and start the year in the best way possible when the season kicks-off back at Brands Hatch on 9 April and said it would be a dream to start the year with a win.

"I'd love to think so, if I could kick off with a win with some prospective sponsors watching on then it would be a dream," he said. "I wouldn't race unless I thought I could win. I'm not out today as there is no engine in the third car, we hope to get some testing in before Brands Hatch but it might be that I don't get out in the car until free practice for the first rounds.

"I'll have to pull out all the stops to take a win but I'm not discounting it."