Salute to Skaife for win

His driver input during the first two practices at most events this year and at all our test days has been invaluable in helping us with set-up and development. If you look at my season this year the one common element has been having Skaife as an offsider.

My race engineer, Jeromy Moore, and I are working really closely. Together with having Skaife better prepared, more confident and fitter than he was at this time last year, it's a real boost going into the next two enduro rounds. As a package, we're far more advanced than last year.

I know I was pretty excited after the race on Sunday but I only had a couple of beers with the boys that night and then it was straight back to reality with my feet firmly on the ground. It was a fantastic result for us especially after such a long dry spell.

On Sunday I thought my last race win had been at Bathurst, but I actually won in Tasmania last November. Still, it's been a long time between drinks and to turn that around with two pole positions and three runaway race wins was a pretty dominant display. It's been a long time since anyone has dominated a weekend that much. For me it was a huge relief and a satisfying feeling to have accomplished that.

On the other hand, my teammate Jamie Whincup was very disappointed with his weekend. But he will bounce back and be a force to reckon with in the enduros. It was one of those situations where one error leads to another. The trumpet sock was left on the engine and that cascaded into a bigger nightmare, putting Jamie behind the eight ball from the very start. The sock caused the throttle to stick open which made it difficult for him to get his speed right coming into pit lane so he ended up with a drive-through penalty. To his credit, he pushed extremely hard to make it back through the pack to 10th but that snowballed into a collision with Rick Kelly on the last lap which meant he limped home and ended up in the gravel trap at turn one.

It was an amazing comeback, but the kitty litter was not a just reward for his efforts. Speaking to him on Sunday night he was still very angry as he knew he had good car speed. In fact, it was only our cars and Tim Slade's that really showed any consistent speed all weekend. That probably made for a moderately boring Sunday race, but I think the two-sprint-race format of the Saturday was a huge success.

It definitely has merit and should be rolled out at other events. The fans get to see two starts, two fast and furious races with everyone pushing hard on their tyres and all the drama that goes on in the pits between the two races.