Articles by Ray Kershler

To say Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup won is to be simplistic in the extreme. In a dramatic last hour, always regarded as the money period in the race; no less than six teams looked to have genuine chances of success. As usual, the gods of motor sport played their cards late. Outrageous race strategies blended with changing weather conditions added to the high drama of desperate drivers; who were throwing V8 Supercars around at speeds of up to 300km/h. The finishing laps offered up some extraordinary scenarios. The mountain erupted when Steve Johnson took the lead from Craig Lowndes. Then James Courtney, the former F1 hopeful, threw down his own challenge on behalf of his unemployed V8 mate, David Besnard. Earlier the favourites had tended to dominate the race. But pole sitter Mark Winterbottom was brought undone late by weather conditions just when victory beckoned. Mark Skaife, seemingly out of contention and then back in again was back out again in a similar scenario. So, too Russell Ingall. So, too Jason Bright. Four-time winner Greg Murphy arrived late and threatened mayhem in the last laps in his own adventurous style. On the last lap of 161, four were left in contention. Just over 2km later Murphy missed a podium finish by three tenths of a second as Ford took the trifecta over arch-rival Holden. But there is no better driver to bring it home in those circumstances than Lowndes who secured his third Bathurst win. He reckoned later he didn't have the speed to win in the dry conditions. The showers changed all that. And in doing so changed the lead in the V8 Supercars championship as Jamie Whincup and Lowndes leapfrogged Holden drivers Rick Kelly and Garth Tander, who did not finish the race. Only 16 of the 30 cars which started finished the race. And Ford won the trifecta for the first time since 1988. Lowndes and Whincup have won Bathurst back to back and have completed a rare Bathurst-Sandown double. “In those circumstances every lap was a new experience,” Lowndes said. "We didn't have the fastest car. And I don't think we could have won in the dry. But the rain changed all that.” This time last year Lowndes was the emotional driver as he won for the memory of Peter Brock. This year it was Whincup who had tears in his eyes. “Last year I didn't know what was going on,” the youngster said. “This is bigger. To win this year is something very special.” Even more special because he thought he had lost his team the race when he almost crashed at the pit lane entry in the latter stages. “I made an error. I wanted to hand over the car to Craig in first position and I went in too hot,” he said. Lowndes rescued the situation but not before Steve Johnson's brave and hair-raising challenge, along with the constant threat from Courtney. “It was a pretty crazy day,” Courtney said. “We did not have the pace to stay with the leaders all day but over the last 35 laps it was 100 per cent.” He couldn't remember the manoeuvre which gave him second place in those last frantic laps. “There were cars going everywhere and I just ended up second,” he said. For Dick Johnson Racing, after some well-publicised financial problems, third was like a win.   Championship Round 10/14 The Bathurst 1000, Mt Panorama 1st Craig Lowndes/Jamie Whincup (Team Vodafone) 2nd James Courtney/David Besnard (Jeld-Wen Racing) 3rd Steve Johnson/Will Davison (Jim Beam Racing) Championship standings 1 Jamie Whincup (461) 2 Craig Lowndes (445) 3 Rick Kelly (443) 4 Garth Tander (434) 5 Todd Kelly (324) 6 Mark Skaife (273)

A split-second decision by Ford star Craig Lowndes not only won him the Bathurst 1000 yesterday but also saved his V8 Supercar championship. Lowndes was hassling the championship leader Rick Kelly around lap 24 when Kelly's rear tyre delaminated at the high speed area of The Chase. Kelly later estimated his speed at more than 290km/h. As Kelly spun backwards through the sand, Lowndes took the more orthodox route on the bitumen. Kelly's Toll racer careered through the sand and stayed backwards across the road in front of Lowndes, who had to make an instant decision — go left or right of Kelly. He chose left — and was right. Kelly's errant Holden had enough speed to clear the road as Lowndes squeezed through underneath him. Kelly stayed cool and brought the car back to the pits for co-driver Garth Tander but admitted he was shaken by the incident. Had the two cars collided, the accident would almost certainly have been the end of the race for both. That would have meant the four top drivers in the championship being left pointless from the feature race of the season, opening up the championship to countless permutations. The Toll car of Kelly and Tander continued to have problems throughout the race after encountering persistent brake problems but the Vodafone drivers stayed on the pace all afternoon. The race result, with Lowndes having to avoid a similarly frightening episode with Mark Winterbottom later in the race, meant Lowndes and Whincup overtook the championship lead of Kelly and Tander to set up a four-way race to season's end with four rounds of the championship to go.

That sounds like a warning to the rest of the field.Murphy has won four times, but the ace Kiwi never previously expressed too much confidence in his chances before the event.Those wins were with Craig Lowndes in 1996, Steve Richards in 1999 and back-to-back triumphs with Rick Kelly in 2003 and 2004.After a solid drive into the Top 10 for today's Bathurst 1000, New Zealand's best known motor racer has come out firing.“The car hasn't been doing what I wanted most of the year, but with changes now it is,” Murphy said.“I am starting to become more comfortable and regain my confidence. It's nice to be able to push the car to the limit again.”Murphy will drive with another Kiwi, Jason Richards, for Tasman Racing. They are being kept safe by bookies, who are offering the pair as sixth favourite at $13.But most fans see the event as a race in four, including the experienced Steven Richards in his campaign with Ford star, Mark Winterbottom.Winterbottom put their car on top of qualifying on Friday and said there were faster times ahead.Richards says the FPR Falcon is the best car he has driven at Mt Panorama, no trite statement seeing he has won twice at the mountain. “We couldn't be in a better position,” he said.Holden drivers Rick Kelly and Garth Tander have assumed race favouritism after Ford stars Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup were slightly off the pace in early qualifying.Tander said yesterday he and Kelly would not try to gap the field, even though many consider they have a speed edge on everyone else.“We will try for a consistent pace,” he said, an acknowledgement the expected safety car periods tend to counteract any substantial leads built during the first few hours.Ford fans will not read too much into Lowndes' early qualifying position. He has made a habit of starting slowly this season, but in recent rounds he has produced the goods when it mattered.“We have the form coming out of the Sandown win,” Lowndes said. “We have a brand new car and we are as confident as it is wise to be at Mount Panorama.”The other prominent combination for today's race is Mark Skaife and Todd Kelly, the 2005 winners.Kelly was second last year with his brother, Rick, but Skaife was mangled on the first lap.Skaife's team is acknowledged as having the best backed car in the field, with the support of the Holden empire. The young blokes might like to lead from the front, but drivers with Skaife's experience realise this race is won in the last hour not in qualifying.

What was supposed to be a gentle run across the mountain for co-drivers turned nasty when Johnson went into the wall at the Cutting. The damage looked worse than it turned out to be but the panelbeaters and mechanics were working feverishly to get the Falcon ready for the Top 10 shootout. Dick Johnson Racing, an iconic team in V8 Supercar racing, has been struggling financially. But Johnson put his car on top of the time sheets in Thursday's practice session to bring some hope. Winning Bathurst would top a tumultuous year for the team, which went public with its financial struggles last year and picked up a life-saving Jim Beam sponsorship. The team had been oozing confidence in the lead-up to this year's race as Johnson revealed he had lost 22kg to drive the car. Co-driver Will Davison felt a few niggles in the car early in the session and Johnson hopped in the driver's seat to give his opinion. Minutes later he was into the wall. `I hit the wall at an angle and that made it worse. Otherwise I might have just scraped along the side of the car,” he said. `But Jason Bright and Steve Richards crashed in practice before they won in 1998 so perhaps it's a good omen.” Davison watched in horror from pit lane as Johnson crashed. “The car did feel a little nervous this morning, a little tricky to drive. They were difficult conditions with the wind up there this morning.”

There is an old adage that a teammate is the first person a driver has to beat. That doesn't make for lasting friendships. Certainly in the V8 Supercar ranks there are teammates who just don't get on, whether it's because of personal ambition or personal hygiene. Normally that's not a problem because race teams tend to split into two parts anyway, separated by sponsors and engineers and held together somewhat tenuously by a single team boss. At this time of year, when the endurance races of Sandown and Bathurst come along, friendships can become even more strained as teammates are paired together for the greater good of the team. Creative tension is normally the name of the game. Yet Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup might be about to rewrite the rules. Whincup was very much the junior when they won the Bathurst 1000 last year. He's still not the superstar Lowndes is, but he's taken quite a few steps up the ladder. Before he had even driven a race for Team Vodafone, Whincup was hailed by his boss Roland Dane as the next Craig Lowndes. It was a big call which now appears to be close to the mark. Yet rather than resent a challenge to his status, Lowndes has warmly endorsed the driver who, at 24, is nine years his junior. Immediately after the emotional Bathurst win last year, Lowndes expressed surprise and admiration that Whincup was quicker than he was over some sections of Mt Panorama. “He made me lift my game,” Lowndes admitted. Since then, Whincup has been winning races in his own right. In a tough season, he now sits third in the V8 Supercar championship, one spot ahead of Lowndes. Yet Lowndes continues to praise him, most recently at Sandown where Whincup handed over with a winning lead for the final stint. No doubt Lowndes is comfortable with his own status in the sport — but Whincup acknowledges that such camaraderie might not be so forthcoming in some other teams. “It is a different attitude. I know not all teams work this way,” Whincup says. “But there is give and take on both sides. “I know — for my part — I owe him. He has been so open with his advice and experience. He has been an excellent teammate for me. “He is one of the reasons I have been so successful. In a way, what I am doing is repaying the debt.” It would be wrong to think they're peas in a pod, no matter how comfortably they sit in each other's driving position in the Triple Eight Falcon. “Craig tends not to think too much. Not to be too fazed,” Whincup says. “But I am different. Before an event I study the race. I study the car. I have to have things 100 per cent clear in my mind. I do the best I can and I am happy. “We are both taking different directions to get to the same point.” Which brings them back to Mt Panorama this weekend. Whincup believes some technical advantages Holden had last year have dissipated particularly in the area of speed and aerodynamics. “We had a slow start to the season and Holden gave us a whupping. But we are back on the pace in recent races,” he said. “Last year was amazing when we broke the Ford drought and with Craig's emotion at winning the first Peter Brock trophy. This year there are probably seven cars that can win. We have a car which is fast enough to win. We have the tools.”  

Mark “Frosty” Winterbottom bolted on some new tyres and flew across Mt Panorama yesterday in 2min 7.1481sec to grab provisional pole for tomorrow's Bathurst 1000. And then he threw down the challenge to the trailing drivers in the Top 10: “If that's the best lap I can do around here I might as well go home.” Winterbottom and his co-driver Steve Richards are extremely confident of their chances of success in the race but they know behind them a string of teams are saving their best 'til last. As team after team talked up their chances following yesterday's one-hour qualifying session it was left to the experienced Mark Skaife to throw in some perspective. “We are all sitting here bull.....ing about how it's going to be beautiful. Well, let's see what it's like in the first hour of the race and then the last hour of the race,” he said. With talk beginning to emerge of a threat to Greg Murphy's lap record of 2min 6.8594sec there's only one thing the top drivers agree on. There's no such thing as a perfect lap at Mt Panorama. Murphy missed a gear when he set that time in 2003 and Winterbottom admitted to a mistake at the end of yesterday's lap. “I suppose it's nice to not do a perfect lap and still be on top,” the Ford driver said. Richards sat in the garage while Winterbottom qualified the factory Ford, content that they have the kit to take the win. “We are having a dream run at the moment but we have to be careful not to slip up,” he said. “I've never driven a better car and we can't be in a better position than we are now.” The final Top 10 will be dictated by a shootout lap at Mt Panorama today, which suggests some of the teams still have an ace to play. Garth Tander, who set the pace early in the day, had his feet up in the pit bay when Winterbottom clocked his lap. “I did a time at the start. After that I was just playing,” he said. Skaife was the only one of the top three who expressed some discontent at his car — not in itself a bad thing at this stage of the Bathurst classic. “I just can't get the best lap out of it,” he said of the HRT Commodore. “But we've never driven a perfect car. That's a fact of life. “Qualifying and the shootout are fine but the six or more hours on Sunday is what we are here for.” The 10 cars for the shootout were quite predictable with all the major combinations prominent. The field was reduced to 30 yesterday after the Team BOC driver Damien White hit the wall. He was taken to hospital but is expected to be OK. The other major incident involved the Irish driver Richard Lyons, who came to grief at The Cutting in the second Team Vodafone Falcon. Race favourite Craig Lowndes qualified fourth.   Conquering the Mountain Top 10 Qualifying 1. Mark Winterbottom/Steve Richards (Ford Performance Racing) 2. Garth Tander/Rick Kelly (Toll Racing) 3. Mark Skaife/Todd Kelly (Holden Racing Team) 4. Craig Lowndes/Jamie Whincup (Team Vodafone) 5. James Courtney/David Besnard (Jeld-Wen Racing) 6. Russell Ingall/Luke Youlden (Caltex Racing) 7. Greg Murphy/Jason Richards (Tasman Racing) 8. Steve Johnson/Will Davison (Jim Beam Racing) 9. L Holdsworth/D Canto (Valvoline Cummins Racing) 10. Paul Radisich/Craig Baird (Toll Racing)   Top 10 Shootout R Kelly/G Tander ............... $3.50 S Richards/Winterbottom ... $3.50 Skaife/T Kelly .................... $4.00 Lowndes/Whincup ............. $5.00 S Johnson/W Davison ........ $15.00 Courtney/Besnard .............. $15.00 J Richards/Murphy ............. $15.00 Ingall/Youlden ................... $15.00 Radisich/Baird ................... $34.00 Holdsworth/Canto .............. $34.00

By his own admission, David Besnard has had a tough few years. But tomorrow he will climb into the impressive Jeld-Wen Falcon as one of the favourites for the biggest motor sport race of the year. “It's nice to be back to get a chance to show what I can do,” Besnard said yesterday after he and co-driver James Courtney qualified fifth for the Bathurst 1000. Besnard was once a familiar face in the world of V8 Supercars. He raced his billycart down the suburban streets of Sutherland as a kid. Karting and Formula Ford titles became the norm as he chased his dreams to Europe and the US. But he ran out of money and was forced to return to Australia. He joined the Queensland-based Stone Brothers team in the same year as Marcos Ambrose, another Aussie youngster who was also returning from a stint in Europe. Ambrose prospered and went on to win two V8 titles, Besnard went on the V8 merry-go-round. He moved to a three-car team at Ford Performance Racing before the team's financial constraints forced him to Craig Gore's newly formed WPS team. When the results didn't come, an impatient Gore divested himself of his drivers and Besnard found himself without a drive for the 2006 season. He crossed the Tasman to race the NZ V8s series and keep his hand in. Good results in that series kept his name in the news and brought him back on to the Stone Brothers radar. Jim Stone had always rated Besnard and when the Kiwi brothers needed a partner to join their young superstar James Courtney, the driver known up and down the pits as “Bezzie” got the call. Besnard was put to the test at Sandown last month and passed with flying colours, producing one of the best drives of the race. At Bathurst this weekend Besnard has stayed with the pace and he and Courtney are well in contention for the race. “It's been a long time. I was pleased I was good enough to stay with the front-runners at Sandown,” he said yesterday. “James is super quick so you'd be mad to say we haven't got a chance.”

The streets of Mt Panorama, host to the Bathurst 1000 since Harry Firth and Bob Jane won in 1963, exhilarates the senses of even the most seasoned V8 Supercars campaigner. By winning a record nine races, Peter Brock made the racetrack his own and his heritage now lies in the museum near the track. Jim Richards can claim seven, Larry Perkins six and Mark Skaife five. In 46 races, only 50 men have stood on top of the podium and only 16 have managed the feat more than once. But the Bathurst 1000 is as much about competing as it is about winning. Now the sole domain of V8 Supercars, and limited to Ford and Holden, the race began as a 500-mile race for a number of classes of cars racing their equals. No fewer than 23 corners and two straights — one up and one down the mountain — make up the Mt Panorama racetrack which can claim a place alongside such famous tracks as Spa, Nurburgring and Monza as the best in the world. Every race has its incidents. Some, like the deaths of three drivers, tragic. Others, like Jim Richards' collision with a bounding kangaroo, simply amazing. Happily there have been more lucky escapes than there have been tragedies. Ford driver Bill Brown was probably luckier than most and one of his crashes, at Skyline in 1969, involved 15 cars, a quarter of the field. In 1971 he was in a barrel roll along the safety fence at Reid Park which still rates among TV footage highlights. More than a decade later Christine Gibson, one of the few women to have graced the race, set off a chain reaction at McPhillamy Park which stopped the race 40 laps short. A couple of years later, Tom Walkinshaw, now prominent at Holden, had a first-lap crash which stopped the race for more than an hour. Given the tension which builds on the grid before each race, cold tyres and nervous drivers, it is surprising there are not more first-lap accidents. The weather has often been one of the drivers' worst enemies. When it's hot, it is almost unbearable inside the cars. In rain, the cars are almost uncontrollable. Rain contributed to one of the more famous finishes in recent history. Jim Richards, missing this year for the first time in memory, had no control of his Nissan in 1992 when he slid through a torrential downpour to collide with other competitors on Conrod Straight. Dick Johnson was leading by the time officials stopped the race but the rules dictated that the leading car on the previous lap — that of Richards — was the winner. A rowdy crowed booed Richards on the podium and the Kiwi driver gave them a succinct character reading before uttering his immortal words: “You're all a pack of arseholes.” Not all the drama of Mt Panorama has involved accidents. Few who saw it will forget Doug Chivas pushing his car into the pit lane so Peter Brock could chase — unsuccessfully — Allan Moffat. And Glenn Seton looks likely to go down in history as the man who never won Bathurst. Some 30 years after his father Bo won in 1965, Seton had the race in the bag until an engine failure stalled his challenge nine laps from the end, gifting Larry Perkins, who had been last at one stage, a most unlikely win.   1. 1992: Jim Richards' Nissan crashes in the wet out of Forrest's Elbow and he is controversially awarded the race. The baying crowd causes Richards to utter the immortal words: "you're all a pack of arseholes."   2. 1994: Trucking tycoon Don Watson dies in a practice crash on Conrod Straight after brake failure.   3. 1986: Mike Burgmann dies when his Commodore hits the base of the bridge on Conrod Straight. The accident triggered the redesign of the track and the introduction of The Chase.   4. 1979: The great Peter Brock humiliates the opposition, recording the fastest lap of the race on the last lap as he wins by more than six laps.   5. 1973: Doug Chivas pushes his car into pit lane to refuel, allowing teammate Peter Brock to chase Allan Moffat. They finished second.   6. 1981: Female racing pioneer Christine Gibson crashes at McPhillamy Park, causing a major pile-up and the race is stopped after 120 laps.   7. 1995: An engine failure at The Cutting with nine laps to go costs Glenn Seton his first race win and Larry Perkins wins after being a lap down. Seton would have won on the 30th anniversary of his father Bo's win.   8. 2004: Jim Richards hits a kangaroo on the run to The Cutting. The overseas drivers were spooked about the wildlife but ironically it was the experienced Richards who clipped the bounding roo.   9. 2005: Marcos Ambrose and Greg Murphy almost come to blows after they sparked a huge pile-up approaching The Cutting.   10. 1971: Bill Brown rolls his GTHO Falcon at McPhillamy Park. It was not the only time the popular Brown spectacularly cheated death at Mt Panorama.   11. 2005: Craig Lowndes is hit by a flying wheel just after Griffins Bend. Lowndes was struggling anyway when the wheel hit his windscreen.   12. 1980: Dick Johnson hits "The Rock" on the track just after The Cutting. Public sympathy allowed the young Johnson to continue a career which would make him a motor racing legend.   Track Stats: Length of track ..................... 6.213km Length of Conrod Straight ...... 1.916km Length of Mountain Straight ... 1.111km Height above sea level ........... 862m Steepest grade ..................... 1 in 6.13

At Bathurst last year a 23-year-old Jamie Whincup made a name for himself when he co-drove to victory with Craig Lowndes. This year Whincup is an established star. But he has blazed the trail for other young stars. An increasing band of young talent continually challenges the established drivers in modern V8 Supercar racing. Perkins has gone with two young drivers this year in his own son Jack, 21, as well as Shane Price, 20. Garry Rogers Motorsport, a team which has always nurtured young talent has two young drivers in Lee Holdsworth, 24, and Dean Canto, 27. Holdsworth won a round in the wet at Oran Park this year and with Canto was fifth in the Sandown preview to show he has the necessary talent. They shape up as the best credentialled of the young stars. But at this stage of their careers winning isn't everything for the younger brigade. It's all about being noticed. Andrew Thompson, 19, gets the chance of his lifetime in Dick Johnson's second car and will enjoy a thrill a minute teamed with Alex Davison. Tony D'Alberto, 21, who has also been learning the trade in the Fujitsu series, competes in the Autobarn car with a good result sure to help his ambitions for the main game next year. Michael Caruso, 24, races with television personality Grant Denyer in the second WPS Falcon, while Jay Verdnik, 21, teams up with Mark Noske in the Tasman car. Only five drivers will make their Bathurst 1000 debut this weekend. Of those Verdnik, Thompson and Chris Pither, 20, have Fujitsu series experience at the mountain, while David Reynolds has driven in Carrera Cup races. While Thompson is the youngest of all the drivers, Shane van Gisbergen, 21, is the least experienced racer. Even Thompson has had more V8 experience than Van Gisbergen, a New Zealander who had his first race at Oran Park in August this year and is the only driver in the field never to have raced at Mt Panorama before in any category.

Kelly chased home the winner Craig Lowndes last year to eventually lose by just six tenths of a second. Even allowing for various safety car periods in V8 Supercar events, 6/10ths is a narrow margin in a 1000km race. Kelly was on Lowndes' tail for the final seven lap sprint but could never get close enough to lunge. Many Holden fans believe Lowndes had some extra curricular help from other Ford drivers around the mountain in holding off Kelly's challenge. Kelly drove with his older brother Todd last year but this year will be joined by regular teammate Garth Tander for Toll Racing. Rick Kelly has finished a close second in the last three endurance races on the V8 calendar but the Bathurst loss is the one which stings the most. “Last year's result hurt quite a bit,” Kelly said yesterday. “To lose Bathurst by 6/10th is extremely painful. And that motivates me to come back and take it out this year. “Garth and I have a good chance. “If we can take out Bathurst it would not only be a feather in the cap but another big step for both of us towards winning the championship.” After being split into separate cars at Sandown last month, Kelly and Tander — separated by just nine points in the 2007 championship — have been united for Bathurst. Toll officials announced yesterday that Tander would qualify the car and Kelly would start the race. Tander can match his co-driver's Bathurst disappointments in spades. In 2005 when they last teamed up Tander was crunched on the first lap and last year he did not even get to turn a wheel when his partner Mark Skaife was hammered on the first lap after experiencing clutch problems. “The last two Bathurst races have been over almost before they began for me,” Tander said. “I am looking forward to qualifying because qualifying at Bathurst is the best session of the year. “After that I have to capitalise on the work Rick has done in the first stint. Bathurst is all about commitment and most of the gains come from digging deeper — and getting a time out of yourself instead of the car.” Despite a perceived speed advantage for the Toll cars this season, Tander says he and Kelly will not be trying to run away form the Bathurst field — rather they will concentrate on keeping a steady rhythm, saving the car so it's in good shape for the run home.