SUPERCARS HOT TO TROT
V8 Supercar teams and drivers are a resilient bunch, a little over a month ago the cream of Australian motorsport battled rain and temperatures in Melbourne which would have seen Eskimos pulling on an extra pair of Trackie Daks and a woolly beanie.
This weekend the stars and cars will venture to another extreme, Australia's tropical top end for round six of the V8 Supercar series at Darwin's Hidden Valley Raceway, the eleventh time the series has visited the Territory.
Several leading teams found trouble at the Sandown round in Victoria with current Supercar Champion Garth Tander losing his lead in the series after struggling for speed the entire weekend. Sandown may have set the scene in this year's championship with Ford Performance Racing's (FPR) Mark Winterbottom and the Triple Eight Racing pair of Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes dominating the weekend taking the top three podium positions after some early season doldrums for both teams, Winterbottom now has a narrow lead in the championship over the Toll HSV Holden of Tander.
Holden were expected to dominate on their home test track in Victoria, factory duo Mark Skaife and Tander struggled with brake problems and the HSV backed Rick Kelly found more trouble than his namesake Ned, all three were totally outpaced in a 1-2-3 finish for Ford. The Triple 888 and FPR Falcons will carry some scintillating form, and the necessary car set-up and speed that eluded both teams in the early rounds and may just settle into a rhythm that will take a power of beating as the championship heads towards the half way point in the season going into the Darwin round.
Despite rising oil prices there would have been quite a few gallons of midnight oil burnt and a fair amount of cranium scratching taking place inside various Holden sheds in the past month trying to come up with some answers to the recent blue oval revival and arrest the Holden mini slump, before Whincup, Winterbottom, Lowndes and Co start buying shares in silverware polishing companies and the distinct possibility of a Ford championship title after Holden have dominated the series for the past two seasons.
Lowndes is aiming to complete a ‘Top End Trifecta’ as he shoots for his third consecutive round win in Darwin and has been a regular top ten finisher in the top end, Jason Bright in the Britek Falcon owns both the qualifying and outright track records at Hidden Valley, which was predominantly a Holden circuit prior to the shellacking in the past two years, another win for the blue oval could see Ford balance the Darwin ledger.
Holden faithful will be hoping Team Red turn things around in the north, return to the podium and put some fight back into the championship, Rick Kelly will debut a new HSV Commodore and Mark Skaife believes the team have sorted their brake issues that plagued both HRT cars in the Sandown round.
Hidden Valley has held a Supercar round since the circuit's introduction to the series in 1998. A unique track, the 2.9 Klm ribbon of bitumen features a 1.1km main straight, one of the longest in the series where speeds of 280 kilometres per hour are reached, horsepower is one of the main ingredients for success in the top end, although power down grip needs to be addressed as the circuit features some tight low speed corners.
When you talk about Hidden Valley, the thing that comes to mind is the heat, the round is a tough one on cars and drivers because of the sometimes sweltering conditions, it turns this round into a real physical challenge in maintaining concentration levels in the oppressive conditions.
Just how hot and how humid can make the difference between success and failure with fatigue a major concern for drivers and crews.
Championship Pointscore.... Mark Winterbottom..1124 Garth Tander...1072 Jamie Whincup..1062 Rick Kelly..1028 Craig Lowndes..897