Winchup is V8 best and fairest

JAMIE Whincup missed the 2007 V8 Supercar Championship by a hair's-breadth two points but last night he got the best consolation a driver could want - being presented with the Barry Sheene Medal.

Whincup was runner-up to new champ Garth Tander - 623 points to 625 - in the nail-biting finish on Sunday to a season of 14 rounds that started at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide back in March. At the V8 Supercars Australia annual awards at a gala dinner in Melbourne, Whincup gratefully accepted the Barry Sheene Medal.

In honour of the late Sheene, a former British world champion motorcycle racer who emigrated to Australia and came to love the V8 Supercar concept, the medal recognises the driver who best represents the sport on track and off track through the year.

Whincup, 24, winner of last year's Clipsal 500 in Adelaide, races for the Triple Eight outfit in the Vodafone Falcon as a team-mate to Craig Lowndes, who won this award last year. Whincup, from Melbourne but now living on the Gold Coast to be near the team headquarters, has driven with Lowndes to win the Bathurst 1000 races last year and this year, as well as this year's Sandown 500.

Had he not been beaten by .8sec on Sunday in the final race of the final round at Phillip Island he would have taken the V8 Supercar Championship from Tander (Toll-HSV, Commodore).

“Jamie has shown character this year in bouncing back with real guts and determination,” chairman of V8 Supercars Australia, Tony Cochrane, said last night.

The Mike Kable Young Gun award went to another 24-year-old, Dale Wood, who races a Holden Commodore VZ run by Greg Murphy Racing in the Fujitsu Series.

Harry Firth, former Holden team manager and the first winner of the Bathurst 1000 race - with Bob Jane in a Ford Cortina in 1963 - was inducted into the sport's Hall of Fame.

The Clipsal 500 race already is in the Hall of Fame for best event, allowing the 2007 best event award to go to the Bahrain round.

The Clipsal 500 was named as having the best volunteers.

Mark Winterbottom (FPR, Orrcon Falcon) won the award for most pole positions and Jim Beam Racing (Dick Johnson's outfit) the prize for best-presented team. Holden is manufacturer of the year.

Meanwhile, Tander has denied that he has signed to drive for the Holden Racing Team next year.

But he hasn't ruled out such a deal.

“I certainly haven't had any discussions in the lead-up to Phillip Island, we were very focused on that,” Tander said yesterday. “This week we'll celebrate our championship victory and the year. If there is a discussion I guess it will happen some time after that.”