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Flying colours for a salute to Brock

We are delighted with third place considering the issues we had to overcome throughout the day

Peter was my mentor and he and Bev took me under their wing in my early days of racing. So it was a no-brainer to give my race car a Brock livery for the 50th anniversary of Bathurst this weekend.

Our team chose the red, white and black livery of the 1979 Torana A9X in which Peter won by a record six laps. I don't think that record will ever be broken, but I'm hoping the livery inspires us to a win in Peter's honour. My car was choppered into Skyline from the Bathurst airport and I was just praying they didn't drop it.

I met up with Bev and we drove down the Mountain together rekindling our memories of the great race and the King of the Mountain. Most of the teams have entered the spirit of the anniversary with special paint jobs, although Jamie Whincup's car will remain in its standard livery.

While no one could win by six laps because of the safety cars used these days, I'm sure Sunday's race will be fast if the weather and the Sandown 500 race are any indication. The forecast is for clear conditions in the low 20s, which means good tyre life, fast lap times and comfortable driving conditions. They are ideal for a very fast race like the pace in the Sandown 500.

I'm a farmer so I'm always up early, but with daylight saving starting on Sunday in NSW, it will be an hour earlier than I'm used to. I sleep in a caravan next to the transporter, so I virtually roll out of bed and straight into a race car.

Every morning, except the Sunday, we walk the track from 5.30 as we have for the past four or five years. It takes about an hour. Then I have my normal breakfast of cereal, fruit and yoghurt. I try not to change my routine for this weekend or any race weekend.

I'm not superstitious and don't have lucky jocks or anything like that for the race, but I do think pole position can have a bit of voodoo about it. While it's a great honour to get pole, not too many seem to win from grid position one.

By Sunday morning we will know where we are with car speed, fuel economy and grid position, and have a race strategy set in our minds. My co-driver Warren Luff knows this place as well as I do, so we will evenly split the practice sessions.

Hopefully, a bit more common sense will prevail here among the drivers than we had in the 500. It's a long race and over the 161 laps you are bound to encounter lapped traffic, crashed cars, wildlife and all sorts of surprises.