Mark Skaife and Neal Bates have a lot in common

...both run their own race teams, are former national champions, and have taken a beating from younger team mates.

At the end of 2007, the pair also looked like they were on the verge of retirement.

But Skaife and Bates have had very different seasons in 2007.

While Skaife struggled again with the familiar demons, and barely troubled the V8 Supercar scorekeepers, Bates took a major commitment pill and got fitter and faster for the Australian Rally Championship.

He has still been outpaced by his wickedly quick team mate Simon Evans, but Bates has done the majority of the winning for his Toyota Racing Team and last weekend he nailed down his fourth national title with a safety-first run at Coffs Harbour.

It came 13 years after his last championship, and after back-to-back series wins by Evans in a Bates-run Corolla, as he completed one of the biggest comebacks in the history of Australian motorsport.

Bates proved this year that an old driver can still be a bold driver, taking the initiative on everything from development of his world-class S2000 Corolla to ensuring his team has the right people and tyres and funding to do the job.

It was as good to see Bates back on top as it was disappointing to see Skaife slumping through the V8 Supercar field. But both had a similar opportunity and it was Bates, not Skaife, who decided he was not finished with motorsport and set out to prove the point with his equally-committed co-driver Coral Taylor alongside him.

So Bates has no plans for an early retirement, even though Skaife will call time in a little less than a month at the V8 Supercar grand final at Oran Park in Sydney. And yet the two men have so much in common, and Skaife could probably have done a Bates and kept his V8 Supercar career alive for at least a couple of years.

Of course, there is behind-the-scenes stuff at the Holden Racing Team which no-one outside the ranks of Skaife and Tom Walkinshaw and top management at GM Holden will ever know.

Still, based on the Bates' result in 2008, the verdict is clear. Mark Skaife went too early.