The track did start breaking up over the weekend as we tore into it.

I don't want to sound too political but I'd like to thank the Bligh Government for their support of motor racing in Queensland.

Last weekend's Townsville event was a huge success and I'm sure a lot of North Queensland people now have a taste of V8 Supercar racing and will be tempted to head south for the Gold Coast Nitro SuperGP in October.

It seems our Premier Anna Bligh is keeping everyone sane with these awesome events in these tough economic times.

And congratulations to the people of Townsville for turning it on. All Queenslanders should be pretty proud of the effort they put in. I believe there were more than 160,000 people over the three days of the event and I think I met just about every one of them. People were really polite and seemed grateful that the drivers gave up their time to talk to them and sign autographs. Plus they had fantastic weather, which always helps.

I think the only bugs in the system were a pedestrian bridge that was too small and not enough toilets, but I'm sure they'll sort that out for next year.

I love street circuits and even though this started with a clean sheet of paper and they could have built anything they wanted, it still had all the hallmarks of a street circuit; there were changes of surface, crowned roads, bumps and manhole covers.

The track did start breaking up over the weekend as we tore into it.

They had to keep fixing and resealing it, but that was no big drama for the drivers. It's something we except. Once that surface has been down for 12 months it should harden and last better next time.

I was very pleased to come away with the historic first race win and first round win. Although I wasn't happy with my qualifying effort first up, that fired me up to attack early. I think I passed about six cars in the first couple of laps which felt great. The track really offers a heap of good passing opportunities.

James Courtney's team stepped up and managed to beat us in the second race, but it was good racing all weekend long.

The track was also relatively safe and there wasn't a lot of carnage, which you would normally expect in a street circuit. But I suppose that's also because half way through the year drivers are settling in a bit.

There also wasn't as much tyre wear as we expected.

We were all worried about our left hand rear tyres burning up, but the longer the weekend went on, the more rubber we laid down, the more grip we got and the kinder it was to our tyres.

By the last race our tyres were hanging in there well. Speaking of tyres, it's back to rolling the dice again with that awful soft tyre rule.

Everyone knows I haven't been a huge fan of the rule and I just think it's not needed to get great racing. After all, we had fantastic racing and passing at the weekend without it.

We head from the hot weather of Darwin and Townsville to the cold weather of Sandown next week and I'm not happy. However, I've done well in Sandown in the past in the enduro races and then last year's shift to three 100km sprints, so I'm still confident.