Articles by Craig Lowndes

There is not only the impact on the race because of the potential for international drivers not competing through injury or other matters, but also the emotional impact on drivers. I didn't know Dan personally, but we race drivers have a bond of understanding and when there is a death it hits everyone. I've always watched and admired oval racing, but the speeds they travel at any contact will result in a major crash. Changes to driver pairings aside, the Gold Coast weekend always throws up a couple of unexpected season-changing variables. There's the fact that it's a street circuit where even a minor mistake can mean hitting a concrete wall and ending your weekend. There is also the variable of having international drivers as our co-drivers. They are all very talented racers, but they don't all know the circuit as well as the full-time drivers and they certainly aren't as familiar with the cars and the rules as we are. My co-driver will again be three-time world champion touring car driver Andy Priaulx who I raced with last year to second place on the Saturday, chasing down Garth Tander like we did at Bathurst last week. On the Sunday Andy got hit up the rear end coming into the pits and we finished 10th. Andy adapted to our cars really quickly last year and came to grips with the circuit very fast. I've been twittering and talking to him over the past year and he's eager to have another go. I think we've got the two best international drivers with Sebastien Bourdais as Jamie Whincup's co-driver. He knows the circuit from his Indy experience and did a great job last year for DJR. It's no coincidence we have him this year with Adrian Burgess and other DJR people now on our team. For me the biggest challengers at the Gold Coast will be Jamie and Shane van Gisbergen. I recall that pair having a great duel toward the end of the Sunday race last year and it should be on again this time. Jamie, of course, will be trying to get the series lead back from me, but I think we've both got too much distance on Shane in third for him to be a championship threat unless, of course, Jamie and I have a few DNFs. If you look at the remaining four rounds, it's almost a 50-50 split in past results between Jamie and me. He has had a good run in recent years at the Gold Coast and Sydney while I've enjoyed a lot of success at Sandown and Symmons Plains. It looks like the series is coming down to a last-race showdown on the streets of Sydney and with Jamie's reputation there, I need to get out further in front. That starts with a good result at the Gold Coast, so the fans will see plenty of action on the streets of Surfers Paradise this year. Jamie and I won't be holding anything back. I'm still hearing a lot of talk about the exciting finish at Bathurst last week. It was the closest in race history and was just what the fans wanted. The race was broadcast live on the American Speed TV channel and talking to the commentators that came out - Darryll Waltrip and Mike Joy - they were very complimentary of our category and very excited about the finish. They were also amazed that we still continue to race in the wet weather. The Great Race was a tremendous advertisement for our category, although there were a few blemishes. The first was the supposed wet tyre shortage, but I believe that was blown out of all proportion. Dunlop had a solution for the issue and were on top of it very quickly. Another incident was the deteriorating track condition and kerbing with the safety car having to come out while the track was cleaned uip. There is talk of resurfacing again which I think would be great, although not so great for my lap record. All tracks suffer from wear and tear and we don't know how well they will stand up to racing until we are actually out there. Another incident was the yellow shirt on Conrod Straught causing driver confusion that it was a yellow caution fag. The only thing I saw was a yellow flag posted on the fence and it took me two laps to work out it was a fan's flag not a marshall. Anything that stands out like that piques our curiosity and at 300km/h it's very hard to be sure of what you are seeing. The big incident was the David Besnard crash and fire. I got to his car as they were distinguishing the flames. I was horrifed to see the flames but pleased to see him get out of the car. Our chief engineer, Ludo Lacrois, came up with a fix to bursting fuel tanks after the fiery grid crash at Perth earlier this year. Given that we have to race in these cars for the rest of this year and the next before the Car of the Future in 2013 with much safer fuel tanks, I think the other teams should look at making Ludo's changes for safety's sake.

If only it had been one lap longer, I think I could have won. Seriously, it was as exciting a finish for me as it was for the fans watching. Some people are wondering how I could catch Garth Tander so quickly but then not be able to get past. The problem is that the rules say that on the last two laps the lead driver is allowed do whatever they can to block the chasing driver. Had I been able to get to GT a lap earlier, I might have got through, but as it turned out he did a fantastic job of holding me out and placing his car just where I didn't want it to be. At the end of the race our car still had good pace and certainly better tyre condition than GT's car. But that doesn't matter. His team did the right thing by putting themselves in the right position at the right time of the race. You really need to have track position and be in the lead of the race with 30 laps to go. Unfortunately, we were hamstrung for position by the problem with queuing in pit lane four or five times behind our teammates Jamie Whincup and Andrew Thompson. If it was once or twice we could have got away with it in a long race, but not that many times. With the way the race unfolded, every time we were in our pit window a safety car would come out and we'd be pitting behind the #88 car. We have always had that philosophy as a team that the lead car takes priority in the pits and the other car waits. My race engineer, Jeromy Moore, and chief engineer Adrian Burgess made the decision to pit my co-driver, Mark Skaife, out of sync with our teammates so we could get around the queueing problem. But as luck would have it, about 10 laps later another safety car came out and we were back to square one. I think Mark and I must have passed more cars than anyone else in the field. It definitely made it a challenging race for us. A lot of people I talked to during the race didn't back us for a win especially when we were running about eighth, but when that oil went down and I was able to get past three cars at one point that suddenly put us in contention. Then I was able to chase down Bright, Murph and set our sights on GT. Honestly I didn't think we could catch GT. He was way too far out in front. But every lap we were pulling 0.5 to 0.7 seconds out of him. Jamie was looking all day like the one to beat and at the end of the day he was understandably bitterly disappointed. Knowing that they had alternator trouble early in the race, I'd have thought the team would get on top of it, but eventually it became a terminal problem. Second was satisfying, but it doesn't taste as good as victory. Everyone wants to win at Bathurst, none more so than me. But at least I can take away the consolation prize of going from 91 points behind Jamie to 100 points in front. It's a great outcome from the weekend, but I'm not getting carried away with leading the championship. There is still a long way to go with four more rounds, 1200 points up for grabs and a number of variables that can change things such as two street circuits and international co-drivers at the Gold Coast. Last year, the big controversy at Bathurst was the delayed broadcast, so this year Seven went live and will continue to broadcast live for the rest of the season. Of course the problem is you then miss action while the ads are on. I suppose we can't have it both ways, but maybe Seven needs to have another look at it with banner ads or inset ads. I'm sure they will because Bathurst is as much their grand final as it is ours. But they need to do something quick because there are still four rounds to broadcast live this year.

Everyone watched the AFL and NRL grand finals last weekend and now it's our grand final this weekend, come rain or shine. Grand finals are played in all sorts of weather and both sides have to play in the same conditions, so it really doesn't worry me if it's cold and wet at Mt Panorama as predicted. We all race the same track. In fact, one advantage is that while I was away at the Australasian Safari last week in Western Australia, my co-driver, Mark Skaife, had a full day of testing at Queensland Raceway with some wet conditions. That not only gave him seat time on wet tyres, but also gave the team the opportunity to tweak the car settings for those conditions. Of course, that's Queensland Raceway which is a different animal to Mt Panorama. This track is daunting in the dry but to drive around here in the wet is extremely - let's say - exciting. It's a dangerous track in the dry with speeds on Conrod Straight around 300km/h and when it rains drivers don't tend to back off too much so it definitely catches your attention. The main thing is to drive smoothly and make all the usual adjustments in the car for wet conditions, such as brake bias and suspension. You are mainly looking for grip on the track surface, constantly searching the road for that area that will give you a bit of extra traction. I'm actually quite looking forward to a bit of precipitation. The other day I saw some old footage of the 2008 race where we had some great battles in the closing stages of the race on a wet pitch. Thinking back on that, it was quite exciting. If it rains again, we'll just take it in our stride, look after the car and try to keep out of other people's crashes. Perhaps the biggest threat in the rain would be young Shane van Gisbergen. He's been knocking on the back door a lot lately and if it rains, he'll no doubt be knocking louder and harder because he's a talented wet track driver. Admittedly he's only one half of a team, but his co-driver is fellow Kiwi John McIntyre so he should be ok as well. They all seem to have webbed feet over there. Another good thing about the wet weather for me is that my lap record which I set in the last practice session on Friday might stand a little longer. I hope so, anyway. I would love it to stand for a bit longer than just 12 months, but if the weather and track conditions are right, the cars are very quick this year and the record could be in danger. Following up on our one-two team win last year is going to be difficult, but not unattainable since we did it at Phillip Island last month. I haven't spoken to team principal Roland Dane about it, but if we get to that situation at the end of the race there are no team orders. We'll definitely be racing. Every race we go in RD wants us to race to the chequered flag and have the best man win. If we can finish one-two it would be unbelievable to do it two years in a row. Skaifey and I are favourites at $2.75 on Sportsbet and our teammates Jamie Whincup and Andrew Thompson are second at $4.75 with Garth Tander and Nick Percat third on $8. But I won't be placing any bets. It's a long race and there are a lot of teams with good chances this year. The biggest team threats are FPR, HRT, SBR and Garry Rogers, while the dark horse drivers are Russell Ingall, Greg Murphy and Jason Bright who are all veterans and as we know at Bathurst, experience counts. The Safari last week is almost a distant memory. It was a shame we crashed and got a 10-hour penalty for not finishing two stages as we were the fastest in every stage we completed. It certainly hasn't dimmed my view of the event. In fact, I'd jump at the chance to compete again next year and after talking to three-time Dakar Rally winner Cyril Despres at the Safari last week I'd love to do a Dakar.

FIRST thing everyone wanted to know after I rolled the Colorado on its side in the Australasian Safari was whether I would be ok for Bathurst next week. Thanks for your concern, but my navigator (John Panozzo) and I are fine. It was a gentle roll at slow speed. Disappointing for my Safari bid as I was well in front, but we weren't at all hurt. Our pride was dinted and so was the car. With some luck I can salvage a podium by the finish on Friday night depending on the time penalty we are given. There are many similarities between the Bathurst 1000 and the Australasian Safari. Both are endurance events where you have to be patient, resist the urge to race too early and hope the attrition rate happens to others. Even the wildlife is the same, although there is a lot more of it over here in Western Australia this year. Many will recall the run-in I had with a kangaroo at Bathurst a few years back and the safety car period we had at Phillip Island a couple of weekends ago when wild geese crossed the track. Thankfully, the kangaroo problem at Bathurst has been eased in recent years with the employment of special roo-shooers to clear the track. The main difference between Bathurst and the Safari is that you don't get lost or take a wrong turn at Mt Panorama. We've got ourselves lost and taken wrong turns quite a few times in the Safari, but nothing major. Despite the roll, I'm really enjoying myself, enjoying the endurance and hoping to one day head over to South America to do the Dakar Rally like my mentor, Peter Brock, had been planning to do in a specially modified Holden Adventra. This Safari has also been a good opportunity for me to concentrate on something other than Bathurst which is my key focus of the whole year. Even so, I can't help thinking about it, especially with the team having its test day at Queensland Raceway yesterday. With me not there, it has given my co-driver, Mark Skaife, plenty of valuable seat time just a week out from the big event. Meanwhile, my teammate, Jamie Whincup, and his co-driver, Andrew Thompson, also made last-minute adjustments for Bathurst. Jamie is very happy with his co-driver who did such a fantastic job at Phillip Island. All year Andrew's been groomed for this part of the year and he delivered. In fact, his start was so good, the stewards looked into it to see if he'd jumped the start but found he just had the best reactions of the entire field. With such rapid responses to the starting lights, he should be a drag racer. Another young gun who performed well at the last round was Garth Tander's co-driver Nick Percat. Even though he stalled at the start line and had to go to the back of the field, he settled in and clawed his way back. I can understand their frustration at being sent to the back of the field when the car proved unable to start on its own. After the massive fire in the starting grid crash at Darwin involving Steve Owen and Karl Reindler, the officials are mindful of the problem of stalling on the grid. The main focus is a safe start and having a car on the front row with a major problem was a recipe for disaster. What the stewards did was perfect and it's in the rules. I'm sure he was fuming in his helmet but Nick drove a very mature race and got them right back into the mix. I wouldn't discount them to be a major force at next week's event.

Our enduro win at Philllip Island at the weekend was very satisfying, but in the end we only pegged back the championship gap from Jamie Whincup by six points.There is now a 92-point gap and the championship is certainly in our sites, but for me the big prize is Bathurst next month. That's the golden egg, our grand final and it's globally recognised. Everyone wants to win at Mt Panorama.We would have made more inroads on the championship at the weekend but for my disappointing sixth-place result on Saturday after qualifying second. Sunday was totally different. Everything went right for us and we had some great battles along the way with Garth Tander and our teammates.My cap is off to my co-driver Mark Skaife. We get him out of the commentary box twice a year and put him in the mix of normal drivers and he is just sensational. The only problem is I'll never catch his total of wins while he's driving for us. He's not only fast, but also wise and mature.Letting Jamie's co-driver Andrew Thomson pass him early in the race was a smart move. We had discussed this and decided we did not want to race early in the day, just stay out of trouble and let the attrition rate happen to others.It's maturity and an understanding of the bigger picture that wins these endurance races. I think that's a lesson Shane van Gisbergen has learnt. He was catching us at a great rate of knots toward the end of the race, but he pushed too hard and must have blistered or delaminated his tyres.Phillip island is a brutal track on tyres and the speed he was driving was just too much to sustain so he basically threw away second place. We also had an incident with him in warm-up that he's taken aim at me about, saying I push the young guys around. I don't know what he means by that. I try not to have contact and can't recall ever having contact with him before.We were on a race simulation lap when he came out of the pits after the chequered flag. There was no time for him to get up to speed and he should have been told by his team that we were charging through behind him.I made contact with his car and he decided he didn't like that so he gave us a hard hit that bent both our cars. I'm sure his team wasn't very happy with that. I'll put my hand up and confess to the first incident, but the second incident didn't need to happen. Anyway, I got over it and got on with the job. The stewards looked into it and didn't see any problems.Shane is a very talented driver, but he still has a lot to learn, especially about long-distance races. If he's learnt his lesson, he'll be a formidable competitor at Bathurst.Our Phillip Island victory was sweet, but I didn't get much of a chance to taste it. The boys had a big night on Sunday, but I went straight to the Broadford track for a ride day the next day, then flew back to Brisbane for a team debrief, then back on a plane and across the other side of the country to Perth to defend my title in the Australasian Safari which starts on Thursday.We had our final Safari test at Mildura before last weekend's race and the two Holden Colorado utes performed perfectly. One change we have made this year is with co-drivers. Last year I had Kees Weel with me, but he's now co-driving for his son, Paul. My co-driver this time is John Panozzo.He's navigated for Paul in the past and he's not unfamiliar with that role, so I'm confident in our ability to put in a good defence of my first Safari title.

... more night races and a Chase points system. There was talk earlier this year about making the Ipswich round a night race and I think it's a shame they didn't go ahead with it. Lights don't have to be a permanent fixture. You can hire temporary flood lights. With Coates Hire a significant sponsor of our sport they could easily have done the job. I'm a big fan of night racing. We started the season at Abu Dhabi under lights and in the past we've had twilight races at Eastern Creek in Sydney and night races at Calder Park in Melbourne. Both have been huge successes. We don't do them any more because of the lack of infrastructure at the tracks where we now race. I'd like to see us return to Eastern Creek with a twilight meeting. Perhaps we could also do Darwin at night with hired lights and maybe Sandown where they already have lights for the horse track, although noise restrictions might be a problem. Night events have worked well for football, so why not V8 Supercars? The other Nascar innovation we should consider is the Chase points system where the top 15 or so qualify for the title and start their points from scratch again. I think it would mix it up and add some excitement to our sport, especially in seasons where we have a runaway winner and the result is almost a foregone conclusion. The current system can sometimes reward drivers who are consistent and don't necessarily win a lot or any races throughout the year. We've seen that happen a couple of times in the past decade. It's boring for the fans while the rest of the drivers and teams tend to use the end of the year for testing for next year rather than racing for this year's title. A Chase scenario with say the top 10 vying for the title from after the enduro rounds would reward drivers that go from conservative mode to attack mode. That's what the fans want to see. They want chasing battles, crashes and grand-final-style excitement. This week we had our final test day before the enduros start at Phillip Island and my co-driver, Mark Skaife, got more time in the seat than me, which is great for his confidence. His feedback and feel for the car is outstanding and to give him that time to get used to my race engineer, Jeromy Moore, and the set-up changes he wanted to try was invaluable. They now have total confidence in each other for a great working relationship. The morning session was soaking wet, then it dried out so we had experience in all conditions and had no issues all day. Skaifey and I are now 100 per cent comfortable in the car and have perfected our driver changes. We simulated routine and emergency pit stops, driver changes, wheel changes and even front spoiler changes; everything and anything you can imagine, we trialled. Everything ran smoothly but we have to remember that it is still just a test day and you don't have the added pressures of other competitive cars sharing the lane and breathing down your neck on the track, plus millions of eyes watching you on TV.

We've witnessed several young guns emerge this year, but the Ipswich round was the best example of how these young drivers are starting to make an impact.Apart from the TeamVodafone cars, the only other car that showed consistent speed in qualifying and racing was young Tim Slade's Falcon. His performance has everyone up and down pit lane talking. He's a mature driver for his age and didn't put a wheel wrong all weekend. He certainly put a lot of pressure on both me and Jamie.David Reynolds also qualified and finished well and has repeated that effort on several occasions throughout the year.Another one to keep an eye on is James Moffat. He has a huge legacy to live up to in his old man, but he's starting to show glimpses of his father's brilliance. I watched the replay of Sunday's race and to see Moffat have a mistake in turn four and then instantly pull himself together, get back on it and finish in fourth was excellent.It showed real maturity. Sure he made a mistake, but it's how you bounce back from your mistakes that marks you in this game. That was a fantastic result for him and gives confidence to the DJR team for the future.Stone Brothers Racing is another team with a promising future. They have always recruited young people with talent and with James, Alex Davison and Shane van Gisbergen they are looking formidable. These are the next generation of drivers who are growing with confidence at each event.I took almost 100 points off Jamie's lead at the Ipswich round, but much of that was because of the unfortunate mistakes that plagued his team at the Sunday race.I'm in no doubt that it's going to be very difficult to take the remaining 98 points off him, especially if he continues to run well. I think you'll find he has had all his bad luck at Ipswich and will continue to be the one to beat for the remainder of the season. He's very consistent so for me it's just a matter of plugging away.Meanwhile, I also have to think about the Australasian Safari between Phillip Island and Bathurst endurance rounds. We have another test in the Colorado at Mildura the weekend before the Island, then go straight to Perth for the event. It's not a distraction from V8s. In fact, it helps me in two ways. It keeps me interested in racing and it keeps me focussed on my skills. After the success of having the Australian Superbikes with us at Perth and Ipswich, I hope the organisers can put in more 4x2 events next year.The fans enjoyed the superbikes as much as I did. It's a great series with most manufacturers involved such as Suzuki, Aprilia, Honda, Kawasaki and BMW. I get on really well with Suzuki rider Josh Waters and spent a lot of time with him at the Ipswich round. He came to the grid for my races and I did the same for his.He's a great young talent and he's having a fantastic life travelling the world doing what he loves to do. We share a common passion to go fast.

His driver input during the first two practices at most events this year and at all our test days has been invaluable in helping us with set-up and development. If you look at my season this year the one common element has been having Skaife as an offsider.My race engineer, Jeromy Moore, and I are working really closely. Together with having Skaife better prepared, more confident and fitter than he was at this time last year, it's a real boost going into the next two enduro rounds. As a package, we're far more advanced than last year.However, I won't tip another team one-two finish at Bathurst. These endurance races are about reliability and there are a lot of other elements such as luck which play a big part. But if we can run the race the way we want to, we are in with another good chance of a repeat 1-2 team result.I know I was pretty excited after the race on Sunday but I only had a couple of beers with the boys that night and then it was straight back to reality with my feet firmly on the ground. It was a fantastic result for us especially after such a long dry spell.On Sunday I thought my last race win had been at Bathurst, but I actually won in Tasmania last November. Still, it's been a long time between drinks and to turn that around with two pole positions and three runaway race wins was a pretty dominant display. It's been a long time since anyone has dominated a weekend that much. For me it was a huge relief and a satisfying feeling to have accomplished that.On the other hand, my teammate Jamie Whincup was very disappointed with his weekend. But he will bounce back and be a force to reckon with in the enduros. It was one of those situations where one error leads to another. The trumpet sock was left on the engine and that cascaded into a bigger nightmare, putting Jamie behind the eight ball from the very start. The sock caused the throttle to stick open which made it difficult for him to get his speed right coming into pit lane so he ended up with a drive-through penalty. To his credit, he pushed extremely hard to make it back through the pack to 10th but that snowballed into a collision with Rick Kelly on the last lap which meant he limped home and ended up in the gravel trap at turn one.It was an amazing comeback, but the kitty litter was not a just reward for his efforts. Speaking to him on Sunday night he was still very angry as he knew he had good car speed. In fact, it was only our cars and Tim Slade's that really showed any consistent speed all weekend. That probably made for a moderately boring Sunday race, but I think the two-sprint-race format of the Saturday was a huge success.It definitely has merit and should be rolled out at other events. The fans get to see two starts, two fast and furious races with everyone pushing hard on their tyres and all the drama that goes on in the pits between the two races.

It meant we had to rebuild the Colorado and it allowed us to go right over the car. That it highlighted the areas we needed to work on. The result was we had a bulletproof car and won the rally in our first attempt, leading all the way from day three.I'm going back to Perth next month to defend my title and last weekend was my first test in the new Colorado rally car. We headed down to a cotton property at Moree and I'm happy to say there were no crashes. We now have a two-car team with former V8 Supercar driver Paul Weel in my Colorado while I'm in the new one with Paul's dad, Kees.The cars are very similar but the new Colorado has some minor adjustments to suspension which makes it nicer to drive over high-frequency bumps and big hits like coming off a rut or big mound. Over 160km/h the new car is quite nice and settled. The original car will now get an upgrade so they are the same.We did about 300km of testing all up and encountered no mechanical problems all weekend. The owner of the property carved out some tracks that had us on similar terrain to what we will encounter in the West Australian rally.Speaking of the west I've been over there this week for a tool show which, as a qualified mechanic, is quite interesting. In the Safari, I have to do a lot of the work myself, so I always like to stay handy and up to date with the latest gear.I've been doing a lot of testing in the past week with a day at Queensland Raceway last week before the round there next weekend. However, instead of just working on set-up for the sprint round, we were more interested as a team in focusing on the coming enduro rounds.We gave plenty of seat time to Mark Skaife who will again partner me and Andrew Thompson who will partner my teammate Jamie Whincup. As usual Skaifey was totally committed and gave us some great feedback on car set-up and turned in some handy laps. He's getting quite comfortable in the car now and is far better prepared than he was this time last year. Skaifey wasn't far off my pace yet he was on hard tyres while I was on softs, so you can just see how close we're getting.This is probably Skaifey's last Bathurst as he is now chairman-elect of the new V8 Supercar Commission which doesn't allow active drivers to be involved. It's in the back of my mind that this will be his last opportunity to race at Phillip Island and Bathurst, so I would love to go out on a high with him and finish his race career on the best result possible - a double victory. It's too far away to start talking about who will replace him next year, but I have been mindful about who is out there to replace him.

Like all race drivers, I love speed and I suppose flying is the ultimate thrill. So during this long mid-season break I've been taking flying lessons at the Caboolture Airport just near home in Kilcoy and I'm loving it. So far I've only done about eight lessons and have about six hours of flying time with an instructor. I still need a fair few more hours before I go solo. It's one of those things where you sort of look for another way to have a thrill away from the racetrack and there are a lot of racing drivers that have plane and chopper licences. Just in the V8 paddock I can think of Greg Murphy and the Kelly brothers who have plane licences and Paul Dumbrell can fly a chopper. I was put on to it by my mate Neil Crompton who says it's a great way to leave behind the hustle and bustle of life. I'm not really sure what I'll do with it when I get my licence. I don't think I'll be putting a landing strip on my property because it's too hilly, plus there is a lot of expense in upkeep. Maybe there will be the occasional opportunity to fly to some of the V8 rounds or even to work it into my sponsorship commitments. So instead of a hot lap of the track I might give sponsors a hot lap of the sky. The thrill of flying a plane is much like driving a race car. You need to have total concentration, get your speeds right, monitor your instruments and listen to instructions on the radio communications. While I do everything naturally in a V8 race car, I'm still having to consciously think about it in the plane, so it's still a long way to go before I feel comfortable. I'd love to buy a plane, but I'm not really sure what to buy, where I would keep it and what the running costs are. Meanwhile, my other priority during the break between the Townsville round last month and the Ipswich round in two weeks has been preparation to defend our debut win in the Australasian Safari in September. This weekend we are heading down to Moree for a shakedown of our two Colorados. Last year I drove with Kees Weel and he's back with me again this year in a new Colorado. Our Colorado from last year will be driven by Kees's son, Paul, who used to race V8s until his big crash at Bathurst in 2008. We want to go to the Safari this year with the strongest possible combination and hopefully score a one-two finish. Paul has competed before and has been fast enough to be leading but hasn't been able to keep it together to the finishing line. Our new car is a carbon copy of the old one, so it should be easy to get used to it. Hopefully my first outing in the new car this weekend won't turn out the same as my first run in the car last year. If I think back I was doing pretty well until I rolled the car on to its roof just before lunchtime on the first day. It's going to be a fantastic Safari this year with even more international stars coming along such as three-time Dakar winner Cyril Despres from France. I'd love to be able to see him in action on the bike. Talking of internationals, this year we have open-wheel ace Sebastien Bourdais on the Triple 8 team for the Gold Coast 600. He's won in the Indy cars at Surfers Paradise before and he did a good job in the V8 races for DJR last year. Our chief engineer, Adrian Burgess, knows Seb from England and speaks very highly of him. However, Adrian wants Seb to drive with Jamie (Whincup) and leave world touring car champion Andy Priaulx and me together in the 888 car as our seating is pretty comparable. It's going to be another great Cold Coast race and I'd love to say I'm looking forward to seeing Simple Minds play, but like all the major acts that have played at street circuits - Guns and Roses, Powderfinger, Cold Chisel and the Beach Boys - I won't get a chance to see them. We're always too busy on the Saturday night. Hopefully they will be loud enough so we can hear them from the pits.