More racing to come

The more racing we do the better for us and the fans. That's the biggest thing to come out of the new ownership arrangements in V8 Supercars announced this week. Teams may get some extra money out of the new ownership, but the flipside of the extra rounds is the expensive infrastructure teams will need to be able to get cars to every one of those rounds.

The organisers need to have a good look at where we go with these extra rounds, especially the international rounds. Asia is the most logical because it's closer than the Mid East where we have been racing.

It's also in the same time zone which is better for Aussie fans. Circuits such as Singapore and Malaysia are where we should be focusing. China was a debacle the first time we went there but I'd love to go back. It's a great track.

Apart from New Zealand it was our first real push overseas and I think it was successful on some levels, but politics got involved so we've never been back. We will also introduce the car of the future in 2013 so it will be a big year for our sport.

I know there is scepticism about our chances of getting other car manufacturers to compete, but once they understand the extra exposure from the bigger season, I think they will be convinced to join. Which companies they are I don't know and couldn't guess.

This weekend we head to Winton which was my training track in the old days when I first got out of karts and into Formula Ford. It was my club and home track and since then I've done a lot of racing around Winton.

It's a tight and narrow track and it's quite difficult to get the car set up right because of the different nature of the corners. I won both races in 2009 when they introduced the Dunlop soft tyre and I finished second in both races last year, so I'm comfortable racing there.

However, I've never qualified on the front row and this year I'm hoping to change all that and grab pole. Qualifying has been one of my weak points and it would be nice to finally get it right.

You need to start on at least one of the first two rows here because the narrow track makes passing difficult. It's a place where you can easily over-drive the car. You have to be patient, hit your marks and get the best out of the soft tyres which we will be using all weekend.

We're expecting very cold temperatures and possibly rain on the Sunday so the soft tyres should last much longer than they did at Perth. I'm hoping to see Karl Reindler and Steve Owen back this weekend after their fireball start-line incident in Perth.

I know Steve is fit and ready, but I'm not sure about Karl. He's had to have some skin grafts on his hands. It would be great for the fans to see him come back after such a horrible accident.

The starting-line crash highlighted some big problems with our cars so Triple 8, being an engineering company, has gone to great lengths to fix it. Our chief engineer Ludo Lacroix has looked at everything that sits around the driver and tried to make it more fire retardant and easier to get out. He's also looked at the fuel tank.

All the changes he's made to our cars for this weekend are also available to teams that have bought cars from us. The co-drivers for the endurance races, including my partner Mark Skaife, will get a run in the first practice session. It will be vital for Mark to keep his eye in, but don't expect to see him in the development series.

There are rumours around that we are going to have a fourth car so Skaifey can get more experience. I can't say we haven't looked into it, but running a four-car team is probably beyond our abilities.