The overall round podium was occupied by Lowndes, R Kelly, James Courtney.
The overall profit makers were the makers of replacement body parts.
I cannot recall more cars suffering body damage over a three race meeting.
Of the front runners,
Lowndes was all toothy grin at the end of the day.
Skaife had another day to forget, tho he had a remarkable drive from rear of grid to top step of the podium in race two, (shadowed all the way by Lowndes).
James Courtney is starting to reap the benefits of going his own way with car set up.
Race two.....reverse grid mayhem.
Skaife was spun on lap 1.
Lowndes was spun by Tander on T3
Morris and Ingall were swapping sponsors names at the first 3 corners.
By lap 4 Morris decided he wanted Rick Kelly's colours on his car as well, making contact several times. Kelly grew tired of this and parked the car in the sandpit....either something broke.....or......?
Then the Stewards played a hand
Receiving black flags for jump starts were,
Fernandez
Davison
Bowe
Now Bowe actually lost two postions at the start.....go figure.
By lap 10 the sweeping turn 11 up onto the main straight was littered with driver side mirrors up against the wall....the boys were into some serious driving.
Whincup and Murphy were bouncing off each other, Bowe was spun by Warren Luff, Ingall and Andrew Jones were trying to swap tyres, paint and sponsors also.
The first safety car was called into play when Steve Owen had his car expire while in the lead, in a dangerous position, on lap 18
The restart saw some major biff n barge, resulting in Jas Richards hurtling into the sand on t3 with serious steering damage......Safety car.
The L24 restart saw Tander bouncing off the wall, he resumed at the tail of the field
L26, and someone dumped oil/steering fluid on the exit from the bridge just before the pack came thru.
When the huge cloud of dust cleared, Murphy was out, Wilson was out, Andrew Jones had major damage, Bright had a strange looking car, several others rejoined with some interesting looking aero changes.
Lap 29 Fernandez was put inot the wall at T11, Brad Jones' car was in close proximity at the time.
Lap 30 and the guys who were able had settled into some close racing for the lead. Skaife and Lowndes had benefitted by from the safety cars, and retirements, and were closing on the lead group of Holdsworth, S Johnson, and Ingall.
The two were on a charge, Lowndes was monstering Skaife as they took the lead 3 cars relatively easily.Johno, and Ingall were out of rubber.
In the best V8 drive of his short career, Holdsworth tucked in behind Lowndes who was tapping Skaife at every opportunity
That was the finishing order.
Race 3. Wallop.
Lap 1....full course yellow.
Safety Car.
On T3 Bright appeared to bounce off Ingall as they all squeezed into the braking area. T Kelly was then spun, and the inevitable concertina/car compression took place. Those with shorter cars included s Richards, T kelly, Paul Dumbrell, who managed to continue
Lap 10 ....full course yellow. Dumbrell hit the wall, possibly as a result of steering damage. At exactly the same time, Jamie Whincups car had spat out something wet n slippery. As he coasted into the infield a number of cars speared off/rotated. With the dust from the drought- affected infield it was impossible to see who was in there. A number of cars limped into the pits under the yellow as the mess was cleaned up. Two were Morris and Skaife. As Morris left the pits, Skaife was relaesed ahead of him and the two nudged. Skaife copped a drive thru, and a broken steering arm. He resumed many laps down.
Lap 18 and Tander had come from 30th to 5th, behind R Kelly, Lowndes,Courtney, and Ingall. Russell was back in enforcer mode and leaned on his teammate thru t11. The Stone Bros would have aged considerably. Because Courtney had to lift off or bite the wall Tander got by at the end of the straight.
L26 This was scary. Max Wilson was into the wall in the dogleg, the car on its side. A marshall was throwing gravel (
) at the seat of the fire on the undertray, and the incar camera was showing Max trying to disengage radio cables, drink tubes, seat belts, Hans device, while not falling to the passenger side, and holding the door open with his leg.
now Max is a small fellow, and extremely fit and agile. I would guess that he was in that car for some 90 seconds. There are other drivers who are not as fit, and are considerably, shall we say, less agile.
CAMS needs to look at this in a big hurry.
L35 and it was race on. Lowndes, Kelly, Courtney, Johnson and Holdsworth headed the field. Ingall and Tander came together in an untidy fashion, Ingall spun, they both resumed several places down.
Rick Kelly was having front end problems, possibly a roll bar mount had been broken by the "saw-tooth' curbing
L44 and Ingall tagged Luff in T2. This cost him a drive thru and 4th place in the Championship.
Lowndes had managed to gap his pursuers.
L47. Lowndes by 6 seconds over Rick Kelly, who was struggling to keep up a fast lap time, and Courtney was closing in on him.
Last lap and Lowndes was out to 10 seconds, Rick limped home ahead of Courtney who had no rubber left.
The rest of the field trailed in with various pieces of metal flapping in the breeze. It included Holdsworth in 6th place, and Johnson in 4th, who held out Tander for the last 4 laps with precision driving. We could hear Tander gnashing his teeth over the incar radio, but Johnson simply drove faultlessly, robbing Tander of exit speed by being a little slow thru the corner, then holding perfect lines in a very wide Ford
The Mountain is a savage Mistress.
