Bathurst Preview

It's The Great Race at Bathurst this Sunday. Officially it's the Supercheap Auto 1000.

For the first time it will be for the Peter Brock Perpetual Trophy, which will give the 62 drivers in 31 V8 Supercars -- 16 Holden Commodores and 15 Ford Falcons -- special incentive for victory.

Holden racers will see it as appropriate that the trophy in memory of the nine-time Bathurst 1000 winner who died so tragically almost a month ago be held in the General's camp, while Ford drivers will be just as keen to be the first names on it. The Blue Oval representatives have a lot of incentive. Ford has not won at Mt Panorama since 1998.

The Great Race is now in its 47th year. Its origins were at Victoria's Phillip Island but the event moved to Bathurst in 1963. Holden has taken the chequered flag first 25 times, Ford 14 times. Ford has only won twice in the past 15 years and its drought over the past seven years has been the longest in its history.

In the modern era Bathurst has become a round of the V8 Supercar Championship Series, which ironically Ford has dominated over the past three seasons, winning the drivers' championship, teams title and two out of three manufacturer cups. Six of the eight top drivers in the championship after eight of 13 rounds this season are Ford men. But the series title is a secondary consideration this weekend. Bathurst remains the crown jewel in Australian motor racing.

Ford Performance Racing won last month's Sandown 500 and has twice been runner-up at Bathurst -- in 2003 and '04. FPR is seeking to be the first team in 10 years to win the Sandown and Bathurst titles in the same year. One of its drivers, Jason Bright, was part of Ford's last victory at the Mountain eight years ago.

The Triple 8 line-up is strong, with Lowndes partnered by Jamie Whincup, who is fifth in the championship in his first season with the team and is an endurance race specialist. Whincup won the Adelaide 500 in his first race for Triple 8 and he and Lowndes were third at Sandown this year. Last season Whincup was third at Sandown and second at Bathurst in a Holden with Jason Richards.

Holden Racing Team's Mark Skaife and Garth Tander were the class of the field at Sandown five weeks ago before a steering malfunction and go into this weekend among the most favored. Skaife is making his 20th Bathurst start and is a five-time winner and reigning victor. And he has always gone back-to-back previously. His first win was in 1991 in a Nissan with Jim Richards and they repeated in 1992. Skaife's third win was in 2001 in a Holden with Tony Longhurst and he repeated that success the next year with Jim Richards.

Last year Skaife won with Todd Kelly. Tander has had a Bathurst win too, in 2000.

Skaife poised to take Brock record
A Skaife victory on Sunday would put him equal third on the Bathurst winners' list with Larry Perkins on six. And, if he collects the Brock Trophy, it would mark his 38th round win -- and that would break the tie between him and Brock for the most wins in the championship.

In HRT's other Commodore this weekend will be well-performed Australian international open-wheeler racer but Bathurst rookie Ryan Briscoe, paired with Jim Richards, who is making a record 35th Bathurst 1000 start -- three more than Brock (both tallies including two 2-litre enduros in the late '90s). Richards made his Bathurst debut in 1974 -- seven years before Briscoe was born, and before 34 other drivers in this year's race.

Richards and Skaife still hold the race record of 6 hours 19 minutes 14.8 seconds from 1991 in a Nissan GTR. That time was achieved without the intervention of safety cars and is in little danger of being broken. Last year Skaife and Todd Kelly won in 6 hours 37 minutes 17.0012 seconds.

However, Holden ace Greg Murphy's qualifying lap record of 2 minutes 6.8594 seconds for the 6.213km circuit in 2003 could tumble this week. Murphy, who has won The Great Race four times and this year is paired with Cameron McConville, shared Brock's last victory at Bathurst with him -- in the 24-hour race in 2003 in a Monaro. "Murph" is finding it hard to think of the Mountain without its King this year. "We can't get too cocky about Holden's winning record at Bathurst, but we have to make sure we do it again for Brocky," Murphy says.

Mt Panorama is Kelly country
Young Holden stalwarts the Kelly brothers, Rick and Todd, are aiming for four Kelly victories in a row at the Mountain when they line up together for the HSV Dealer Team. One of the brothers has won in each of the past three years -- Rick with Murphy in 2003 and 2004 and Todd with Skaife last year. This is the first time Todd, 26, and Rick, 23 (and second in the championship, just 27 points behind Lowndes), have been in the same car at Bathurst. They could be the first brothers to stand on top of the podium at this V8 classic.

Since grid positions for The Great Race were first determined by qualifying times in 1967, only three cars have won after starting outside the top 10. The last was a Holden driven by Murphy and Steven Richards which had qualified 12th in 1999.

Two years ago saw the closest gap between the top two qualifiers, with Steven Richards in a Holden just 0.0012 seconds ahead of Jason Bright.

That pair were teamed in a Falcon in 1998 for Ford's last Bathurst victory. The V8 Supercar paddock is rife with talk that Richards, paired with Paul Dumbrell this week, is departing the Larry Perkins Holden team next year to return to Ford with FPR, in place of Bright -- who is heading off to his own team, Britek.

Bright has stood on all three steps of the Bathurst 1000 podium. Apart from 1998, which was his first V8 Supercar victory, he finished second in 2000 and third in 2002. His co-driver Mark Winterbottom's best at the Mountain was his fifth in 2004, but he shared the Sandown success with Bright five weeks ago and heads his more experienced teammate in the championship (third place versus seventh).

Reigning V8 Supercar champion Russell Ingall is languishing somewhat in the series this year, standing sixth, but has won Bathurst twice, in 1995 and 1997, and is making his 15th start -- this time with Luke Youlden as his co-driver for Stone Brothers. "I'm not really viewing it as part of the championship, but looking at it as an individual event. I will be in there with a 'go for it' attitude," Ingall says.

Seto gives it another go
Glenn Seton, a former series champion who now only comes out for the enduros, is to make his 23rd Bathurst start, still chasing his first Bathurst win, in the other Stone Bros Falcon with James Courtney. Seton's father Barry -- known as Bo -- made 22 starts and won in 1965 in a Ford Cortina. Glenn has been runner-up three times -- in 1987, 2003 and 2004, the latter two with Craig Lowndes, each time behind Greg Murphy and Rick Kelly. But 1995 was Seton's greatest heartbreak, when the engine of his Falcon blew as he led nine laps from the finish.

"I'm not feeling any extra pressure," Seton says. "I know what the race entails. I'm there to do a job, that is to support James, and if that leads to victory then that's great. I've had some great results in all the years I've competed at Bathurst so I can't complain, but a win would be icing on the cake."

Another Ford stalwart, John Bowe, chalks up another milestone this weekend, becoming the first driver to start 200 championship rounds for one manufacturer. It is actually Bowe's 207th round, as he had six starts in 1986 in a Volvo and one in a Nissan in 1987.

Brock drove 212 rounds, including 187 in Holdens -- the most by any driver for The General -- as well as 16 in a Ford Sierra and nine in a BMW M3. Dick Johnson contested 202 rounds, 189 in Fords and 13 in a Holden, while Glenn Seton has driven a Ford in 188 of his 202 starts with the other 14 for Nissan.

Double ton for Bowe/Ford
Bowe and his team boss Brad Jones are the most experienced combination in Sunday's race, both starting for the 22nd time -- and their fifth time as teammates. Between them they have driven more than 18,000 race kilometres at the Mountain -- equivalent to a lap and a half of Australia, or more than a trip from Sydney to London.

Bowe has won Bathurst twice, in a Sierra in 1989 and in 1994 in a Falcon, and has been on the podium seven times -- equal third in the all-time rankings.

Jones is equal fifth on that list, with five podiums, but has the unwanted record of most podiums without winning. Jones has also been involved in two of the closest finishes. In 2001 he and Scotsman John Cleland finished only 2.2785 seconds behind Skaife and Longhurst in the closest finish in the 10 years of the V8 Supercar brand.

Longhurst is back this year for his 24th start, partnering Steve Owen in a Commodore.

While the veterans know Mt Panorama backwards, there are six rookies in the field. Two of them are paired in a Commodore -- 20-year-old Jack Perkins, son of Larry, and Shane Price, who at 19 is the youngest driver this weekend. Apart from Ryan Briscoe, the other rookies are TV personality Grant Denyer, Jonathon Webb and Irishman Richard Lyons.

New Zealander Paul Radisich had won two touring car world cups and raced at Bathurst before he made his V8 Supercar championship debut in 1999 at 36. This weekend Radisich becomes the 22nd driver to start in 100 championship rounds -- and the fourth Kiwi to do so, behind Jim Richards on 130, Steven Richards 121 and Greg Murphy on 110.

Johnson on the way back
Aside from Brock and Allan Moffat, if there is one name synonymous with Bathurst it is that of Dick Johnson. Now several years retired from driving, Johnson's team is enjoying something of a revival, sitting sixth in the teams championship -- headed by the HSV Dealer Team and Triple 8 -- and with Steven Johnson eighth on the drivers' table.

DJR is chasing its first podium finish since Sandown 2004. In the two years since it has had three fourth places and three fifth places. Two of these fourths came in the past two races -- Steven Johnson was fourth overall at Oran Park and he and Will Davison shared that position at Sandown. Steven has finished fourth at Bathurst three times -- in 1997 with Craig Baird, '99 with father Dick, and 2000 with Cameron McLean.

If DJR is a dark horse, so too might be the Tasman Motorsport Commodore of Jason Richards and Andrew Jones.

But another famous name back for more at the Mountain is David Brabham, who is teamed with New Zealander Matt Halliday in the second FPR Falcon. Brabham is a man with a worldly perspective on racing. He says: "To win Bathurst in a V8 Supercar would be better than winning the Le Mans 24-hour sports car classic."