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Just caught some footage of Ambrose on his shootout lap. That Ford is just sucking the track into its front and spitting it out the back. I cannot recall seeing a better handling V8. The worrying thing for his competitors is that he appeared to be at about 8 tenths. Still, it is a long race.

Ingall and Ambrose set their Q times to get into the shootout with a grand total of 7, yes 7 laps including warmup and slow down. The cars were then put away !!!!!!! Most drivers ran at least 10 to 12 laps and more. Given the tyre restrictions, The Stone Bros are looking good, but this is a race where misfortune is the norm, and the pace car can do more laps than some of the competitors.

Just to get this off my chest...this was one of the worst race telecasts I have seen. To have the camera trained on a stationary car for a 60 second penalty is beyond a joke...... Ah thats better.

THE RACE
Ambrose Lowndes and Ingall simply drove away from the pack at the start. After a drag race to turn 1 Ambrose took the lead, with Lowndes close behind and Rusty a tad further back and Kelly in the first of the holdens in 4th place. Behind him Tander Richards and Skaife were dicing for posiyion, with the rest of the field close behind. It was looking good for a tight competitive race, perhaps not so good for the one-eyed Holden fans.
Ambrose looked comfortable and soon opened a 1 and a half sec gap to Lowndes
LAP13
Greg Ritters Ford expired just past the pit exit, and a full course yellow and safety car ensued. Most cars dived for the pits.
This was to determine the out come of the race.
Under V8 regulations the teams can only use two wheelmen with rattleguns.
Lowndes changed the rears, Ambrose changed all 4, Rusty queued behind Ambrose.
Lowndes jumped Ambrose for the lead, Rusty fell to 14th. Lowndes was not headed after this.
Lap 36
saw The RAT blackflagged for an oil leak as at Darwin.
Worse was to come.
Lap 44
And one of the biggest rollover, corkscrew, nose spins and more rollovers I have seen.
Exiting turn3 Morris caught the rear of Jason Richards and turned him sideways across the ripple strips, causing him to barrel roll high into the air. So high that the weight of the engine brought the nose of the car to earth 1st and it corkscrewed on its nose a number of times, before landing on its side and, almost as an anti- climax barrel rolled several more times before flopping to rest. There was so much energy invloved, it was frightening to watch. I am very glad to say that Jason was able to walk, albeit very unsteadily, from the wreck. I would say that even now his eyeballs are still spinning. He will be very sore tomorow.
Morris must by now have made contact with every car in the field at one time or another, or maybe it just seems that way to me.
He copped a drive thru penalty for it, with an extra 60 sec., stationary penalty....and we got to see the whole thing...pit entry 60 sec wait and pit exit. Fascinating Television.
15 LAPSTO GO
Rusty had fought his way back to 4th behind Tander who could not make an impression on Ambrose in 2nd place. Lowndes was comfortable in 1st.
Matty White put it into the kitty litter at turn one and we had the Safety car out.
The field bunched behind, and cooled everything down ready for a big sprint home for the last 10 laps. Basically they just resumed station at the "go green" , for Lowndes was able to drive away and hold a gap to Ambrose, while Tander was able to hold Rusty off to the line.
Finishing Order.
Lowndes
Ambrose
Tander
Ingall
S Richards
T kelly
Ellery
Murphy
Bright
S Johnson

Notes.... . Skaife ran wide around lap 20 and finished 15th. In the early laps he was behind his team mate Tod Kelly, and with headlights on was hassling him to move over, I caught some radio talk from Marks Pit saying that Tod had been told not to fight him for position. Tod didn't, he just drove away from Skaife. I suspect that all is not well in that camp, with the BOSS, ( Mark) being consistantly out driven by "The Toddler"
Radisich (The RAT) limped home last.
Wheel had an airbox fire, which melted some important bits

After a lot of protests from fans,and teams, AVESCO reinstated the warm up period in the morning. A good thing.
Ambrose had crankshaft sensor problems, as did 2 or 3 others.
Tander had a flat battery, and the spare was flat.
These guys were at the front of the pack on the grid. If one car at the front does not get away on the green lights it is dangerous enough. If more than one sit there somebody is going to get hit.
A V8 starting at the back of the grid is going to be doing 150-160kmh at the start line. That is one hell of an impact with a stationery 1400kilo object.

Oran Park is next. Rumour, very strong rumour, has it that this will be the last V8 Supercar Race at Oran Park EVER, due to a variety of reasons.
I will be going down on the Friday to say goodbye to a great track.
See You There.

( just look for Therapy, with an extremely handsome, intelligent looking bloke in it, that will be my kid brother.)

Mr. Morris is now waiting anxiously to find out if he has an appointment with the judiciary, afetr biffing Jason Richards straight to hospital. Jason's team do not have a spare car, and are facing a $200,000 rebuild before the next round at Oran Park. Speaking of which, it appears that there will be no action on the friday, with the entire program shoe- horned into Sat n Sun. This may change.

For those of you who are not aware, Lowndes' team races with Stone Bros engines, so there is no lack of grunt in that department. Stone Bros certainly supply customers with engines as good as they give themselves, Ambrose could not gain on Lowndes on the straights.

ED, Results ?

In regards to oran park, the circuit will be demolished to put up housing estates. The urban sprawl for sydney continues.
On a good note: The company that owns oran park will be building a track further out. So Sydney will still have a decent race track.

rah wrote:In regards to oran park, the circuit will be demolished to put up housing estates. The urban sprawl for sydney continues.
On a good note: The company that owns oran park will be building a track further out. So Sydney will still have a decent race track.

Further out where ?

Further South West. There is a long way to go before they hit water.

rah wrote:Further South West. There is a long way to go before they hit water.

Somewhere this side of the Spencer Gulf then. That will save on ferry fares.

ED, the table is still bare

Well it isn't really bare, just the last round hasn't been scored

Will do this week!

Regarding people not placing picks for a race, do we give a 0 or do we roll their picks from the previous round ?

ED, we MUST roll them over !!!!! I do not want to be in the same country as JV if she forgets, and scores zero.

Just dropped in to see the state of the tablecloth ED......whats this! crikey it does need changing, doesn't it