The new Queensland Raceway near Ipswich held it's second top line touring car event a few weeks ago when the V8's had their traditional curtain raiser to the big daddy of them all, the Bathurst 1000. The race, normally at the Melbourne racetrack at Sandown, had a slight change of venue for the first time in over thirty years.

The new track has now seen some more action since the V8's saw the track in the sprint race format, and this time would need to call on the skills needed at Bathurst, strong pace allied with good reliability and good pitwork. Add to this the mandatory brake pad change stops - that must be effected between lap 88 and 112 of the 161 lap race, and the true distance race tactics would rise to the surface.

Jason Bright started his defence of his last Bathurst win with pole in the Top Ten Shootout, which saw each car in the top 10 on the track on his own for one lap to decide the top 10 places. The Pirtek Falcon driver was followed by another young gun. Garth Tander took second in the Valvoline Commodore VT he would share with teammate Jason Bargwanna. The pair had a difficult task - Tander is well over 6 feet tall, while the small Bargwanna packs a lot of punch into a surprisingly small frame! The team had made a 'dicky seat' for Bargs, and the boys had been practising installing it at pitstops, but they had not tried it under race conditions!

HRT second driver Mark Skaife, always a quick qualifier, took the factory VT Commodore to third, while Kiwi Paul Radisich took the Dick Johnson Racing Falcon to fourth. The surprise of the session is the performance of David 'Truckie' Parsons, who put his newly acquired Fred Gibson built VT Commodore on the seventh spot on the grid. The Victorian will be partnered in this race and Bathurst by Tasmanian namesake David 'Skippy' Parsons, a former winner at Bathurst with HRT way back in 1987!

Jason Bright and co driver Craig Baird looked to have the package that would take them to the flag first until the Pirtek Ford's engine cried enough on lap 105. . The non finish saw the young Queenslander bow out of contention for the outright championship, but will still have a mightily strong package for Bathurst. They had been chasing the similar Falcon of Paul Radisich until the Kiwi pulled out after 59 laps with a brake problem that could not be fixed. The race lead was taken for a time by the Commodore pair of Bargwanna and Tander, and they had the 'dicky seat' pitstops down pat - practice makes perfect, and remained in contention for the whole race distance. Russell Ingall started the race in the Perkins VT Commodore, and the car steadily made it's way forward, until they took the lead near the end of the race. John Bowe and the versatile Jim Richards were around the front as well until a fuel fire in the pits dropped them to an eventual 18th place finish. Bowe, who was strapping himself into the car at the time, was oblivious to the whole incident until told on his in car radio!

The HRT boys had a dramatic race, with an incident with Jason Bright damaging the steering of the number two car of Skaife and Morris early. The rest of the race became a bit of a test session for the team and new recruit Morris, who has not been in a V8 for some time. The first car of Lowndes and Cameron McConville took third after watching the third place car of Greg Murphy simply spin off the circuit with two laps to go. This also allowed the Tickford Falcon of Glenn Seton and Neil Crompton into fourth after starting the race outside the top 10. The sentimental favourite, Dick Johnson, driving with son Steve would finish seventh after a determined run in the Shell DJR Falcon.

But they all had to give best to the Castrol VT Commodore of the wily Larry Perkins and the Enforcer, Russell Ingall. The pair made their way steadily forward, and with some fantastic pit stops and the necessary speed and reliability of their well developed package, they held out the young Tander and Bargwanna and claimed the first round victory in the endurance races. Bathurst should be a cracker, with so many teams able to win. I'll keep you posted!

Neil Blackbourn - [email protected]

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