MOTORSPORT: Lowndes celebrates 600 starts

Supercars superstar Craig Lowndes celebrates a record 600 race starts on Sunday as the championship battle fires back up at Sydney Motorsport Park.

And the man Virgin Australia Supercars Championship boss James Warburton likes to dub “the modern day Peter Brock” isn’t exactly stumbling to that remarkable achievement.

Instead, now happily ensconced in his own satellite team within the larger Triple Eight organisation, the 42-year old is driving with as much zest and smarts as ever.

He runs a close fourth in the championship in 2016, having won two races in his Team Vortex Holden Commodore VF – taking his total to a record 105 -- and is a legitimate chance to claim his fourth title and first since 1999 when he was racing for the Holden Racing Team.

Lowndes made his touring car championship debut for the HRT at the 1994 Sandown 500, but won his very first championship outing for the factory outfit at what was then known as Eastern Creek in 1996.

He also won Triple Eight’s first ever Supercars race here in 2005, ending the poorest period of his career and signaling the emergence of the team that has dominated the championship for much of the next decade via both himself and teammate and six-time champion Jamie Whincup.

So it’s appropriate Lowndes brings up this milestone here in Sunday’s 200km race.

“It’s great, ’96 was my first full-time drive and now in 2016 we’ve come back in the ‘600 Club’, so Sunday will be a very special day,” he told supercars.com.

“I think there’s no doubt it’s a great honour to be around the sport as long as we have to get the milestone, to be in the 600 Club, be the first to the 600 club.”

As great an achievement as it is and a handy promotional tool for the VASC, the sentimentality and bonhomie surrounding Lowndes will be left in pitlane as the championship tackles its final sprint outing before the co-driver enduros headlined by the Bathurst 1000 that make up the Pirtek Enduro Cup.

“I still would love to win another championship,” Lowndes said. “I’d also love to win another Bathurst, but I’m not too greedy.”

Whincup leads the championship from Red Bull team-mate Shane van Gisbergen, with Prodrive Racing Australia’s Mark Winterbottom the sole interloper in the top four in The Bottle-O Ford Falcon FG X.

Among active drivers Lowndes is the winningest here with five victories, while van Gisbergen and Whincup have each scored two. If Whincup adds to that tally this weekend he becomes the second driver to in the category to score 100 wins, as he currently sits on 99.

PRA’s Chaz Mostert was a double winner here last year and is due a win in 2016, especially considering he has started from the front seven times this year without once standing atop the podium.

The Supercheap (that’s his sponsor not a character reference) driver’s season has been a struggle as he recovers from his horrific 2015 Bathurst crash injuries and also comes to terms with his Falcon, which has not been as happy on soft tyres as it was on hards last year.

But last time out at Ipswich he showed his best form of the year which bodes well. If Winterbottom is to successfully defend his championship he really needs Mostert running at the front and disrupting the T8 horde, which have won the last five races between them.

Mostert’s rival as the best of the next generation, Scott McLaughlin, also needs to fire at SMSP or watch his championship chances start to look slim. Qualifying speed is his challenge in the Volvo S60.

Plenty of attention will also be paid to the HRT this weekend in the wake of the recently announced decision by Holden that the Walkinshaw-owned team would be stripped of its factory status in 2017.

It’s also a return to SMSP for HRT’s James Courtney, who suffered serious injuries in a bizarre accident here last year when the wash of a low-flying Navy helicopter dislodged a sign that hit him in the chest.

Courtney didn’t return until the Gold Coast and will endure ongoing medical issue for the rest of his life as a result of the incident.

Meanwhile here's what to look out for at Sydney Motorsport Park this weekend:

>> The Red Rooster Sydney Motorsport Park SuperSprint is the ninth round of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship. It comprises 1 x 120km race on Saturday and 1 x 200km race on Sunday. Practice is on Friday and Saturday morning and single qualifying sessions on Saturday and Sunday.

>> All qualifying and racing will be conducted on the Dunlop soft tyre.

>> All cars will have to make at least one stop in the 120km race. They will have to make a minimum two stops on Sunday to comply with the minimum 120 litre fuel drop.

>> The 3.9km track has a top speed of 265km/h. Average speed is 154km/h. The primary set-up focus is on car stability and rotation and – of course – tyre life. SMSP is a challenging set-up because of its wide array of corner speeds and cambers. Turn one is the highlight for the drivers with a 200km/h entry speed.

>> Chaz Mostert owns the qualifying lap record at 1m 28.9583s. Garth Tander owns the race lap record at 1m 30.9123s.

>> The five-time and retired Supercars champion Mark Skaife is the most successful driver at SMSP, claiming 10 race wins. His old team, the Holden Racing Team, has the most wins at the track with 16, although the last came in 2008 via Garth Tander.

>> Apart from Lowndes and potentially Whincup, milestones this weekend include 204 round starts for Nissan Motorsport’s Rick Kelly, equalling Dick Johnson on the all-time list. Sunday’s race will be the 50th at the venue for championship points. The first outing was held here in 1992 and was won by John Bowe in a Shell Ford Sierra RS500.

>> Fox Sports will telecast the action live. Channel 10 will replay highlights.

Bruce Newton is a paid contributor to the official v8supercars.com.au website.