From Bathurst, it's a race every two weeks until the end of the year.

It is very much the calm before the storm.

We've had a full month off to prepare for Bathurst and now we are getting close to crunch time. It's not only the cars that have to get prepared but also the drivers. I've stepped up the physical training to cope, not only for the special demands of Bathurst, but also the last part of the year.

From Bathurst, it's a race every two weeks until the end of the year. One minute you are racing at Bathurst and the next thing you know you are sitting down for Christmas lunch with the family. It's a gruelling schedule and a right royal battle all the way to the finish.

So we have to get our fitness right before next weekend because we are pumping it for the rest of the year. I suppose this will be pretty much what it will be like next year with the two condensed halves of the season with racing every fortnight and a nine-week break in the middle.

I don't do anything massively special in my training except to modify frequency to cope with the two or three driving stints we do at Bathurst. So instead of one training session a day we do several sessions a day to get used to switching on and off and recovering quickly.

Generally we have one big race per day, so we warm up, compete and cool down. The body gets used to that. Bathurst is more like a game of footy with two halves so you work hard, put in the big effort, then recover as quick as you can and then go back out there and put in again for the next half.

Speaking of footy, I'm really looking forward to the grand final this weekend. I'm originally from Melbourne so I'm a big Storm fan and I'm hoping they can make it two out of four. Going by their form of last week it's looking good. I'll probably catch up at the local with a few mates and watch the game as we did with the AFL final. It's an amazing time of the year for sport with the footy finals and then Bathurst.

We did our final testing at Queensland Raceway on Monday. There were no issues that surfaced. It was all fairly routine. We weren't trying to go for times or speed, we just ran in all our equipment for the race over about 10 laps to make sure everything is running well. Then we get everything crack tested and that goes in Saturday night for the big race on Sunday.

We also did plenty of driver changes and pitstop practice. It's great news to hear that Casey Stoner is fit and ready to return to MotoGP this weekend in Portugal after his lay-off with a mystery illness.

They say it's chronic fatigue syndrome but no one knows for sure. I think he just needed a bit of a much-deserved rest. We went overseas quite young and has been pushing really hard for a long time. I can relate to that. I've been pushing hard since I started as a kid in karting.

Every sportsman can knows that to stay at the elite level as he has it takes a lot of energy and mentally it's extremely tough. I hope he will come back feeling refreshed, motivated and strong. He clearly is an awesome rider as no one has been able to handle that Ducati like he has.

If his mind is in the right place he should be really competitive. I wish him luck and I'll be glued to the TV at the weekend cheering him on. I haven't received anymore details about the Race of Champions in Beijing next month. All I know is we're 100 per cent committed and ready to go. I get to drive a WRC car which should be fantastic plus a KTM buggy and some other great racing cars.

It'll be a great experience to race against some of the world's best drivers.