Heading for the finish line

We're at Tassie this weekend which is the third-last round and I've got to start narrowing that 143-point gap to my teammate, Jamie Whincup. While I'm concentrating on rounding up Jamie, I also have to be mindful of Shane van Gisbergen and Mark Winterbottom, especially Frosty who has been on a bit of a points charge over the last couple of rounds.

I want to win the championship, but we also want to maintain our 1-2 position for TeamVodafone. If we finish that way, it will be the first time since 2004 when Marcos Ambrose and Russell Ingall did it for Stone Brothers Racing.

Symmons Plains is not the shortest track of the series, but it has the shortest lap time of just over 50 seconds. There are only eight corners and only two places to pass, so it's important to get a good qualifying time, get out in front of the pack to avoid the carnage and have quick pit stops as it's easy to go down a lap if you have a bad pit stop.

The laps disappear quite quickly in the race and also in practice where you have a limited number. The good thing for the fans is they get to see the cars go by every 50-odd seconds. Passing is usually down into the hairpin or off the end of the back straight. Some drivers have tried brave lunges elsewhere, but the lead driver can usually block and control the race.

Weather plays a big part in Tassie and the prediction is for rain so we may not get to run a lot of the round on soft tyres. Last year we had a mixture of soft and hard tyres for the weekend, but it's all soft tyres for qualifying and racing this time.

Most teams and drivers have now got their heads around how to get the best performance out of the soft tyres without hurting them too much. Symmons Plains is pretty easy on tyres, so they should last the duration. The tyre regulations for 2012 will be all softs except for the long distance races (Clipsal 500, Bathurst, Sandown, Gold Coast and Homebush) and Phillip Island which is pretty hard on tyres.

The more we've been using the soft tyres, the more the teams and drivers love them and I think they're also good for the fans. Because they generate a lot of grip and speed, they provide more passing opportunities and because they fade quickly, they mix up the race order and deliver some unpredictable outcomes.

Tassie can also be a bit of a smash-up derby, especially into the hairpin. But with the Sandown round the following weekend, drivers will be on orders to avoid car damage as they won't have much time to fix it. Tassie has been a good hunting ground for me. I qualified well there last year and won the first race but retired with a broken gearshift while leading in the Sunday race. It just came out in my hands. The problem was a combination of having too much preload and the design of the bolt pattern that holds the lever into the gearbox. But it's since been rectified and hopefully we won't have the problem again.

I'm excited about the superbikes returning for this round. I love watching them from the pits as they come through the last turn on an incredible lean angle. They actually use a slightly different layout to the V8s as they go hard left at turn 1. They're always exciting to watch.

Finally, I'm happy to announce I have reached 10,000 Twitter followers. I celebrated with a competition and gave away a signed race car rim.