One more Bathurst for Lowndes will tie top record

He's mastered the mountain five times before, but never has Craig Lowndes had to be wary of a Nissan or Mercedes popping into his rearview mirror during a Bathurst 1000. Sunday's Great Race will be the Red Bull Racing pilot's 20th start at Mount Panorama and 500th race in the V8 Supercars/Australian Touring Car Championship.

Yet the always-smiling Lowndes admits he still gets that "funny feeling" in his stomach whenever he sees the famous mountain. "I don't think it matters how many times you come here, you still get that same feeling," he said yesterday. Lowndes, who sits second on the 2013 championship standings just 96 points behind his teammate Jamie Whincup, has finished on the podium eight times at Mount Panorama in the past 10 years.

One more podium finish will tie him with legends Peter Brock, Larry Perkins and Jim Richards (12) for the record of most podium appearances in the history of the Bathurst classic. But for each one of those races, Lowndes has had to deal only with a rival Holden or Ford. His Bathurst debut came in 1994 -- the last time a Mercedes-Benz lined up on the grid and two years after Nissan quit the category. 

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Come Sunday, the 39-year-old expects to be somewhat nostalgic when the two manufacturers hit the track for the first time since they returned to the sport at the start of the year. "It's almost like the old days when I used to sit at home watching it growing up, hoping one day to be there," he said. "So it'll be quite a spectacle to see the Nissans and Mercedes running around the mountain again."

Lowndes said his second-place finish last round at Sandown had provided a timely shot in the arm for himself and the RBR Holden team, after a poor weekend at Winton in August. "It gave us massive confidence," he said. "But Bathurst is the one we all really want to win."