MOTORSPORT: V8s roar in the West again

While most rounds, other than the Bathurst 1000, comprise two races -- one Saturday, one Sunday -- Barbagallo will have one this Saturday with the cars running on the hard Dunlop tyres and two on Sunday with the cars on the soft-compound tyres.

All three races are scheduled to be 50 laps of the 2.42km circuit -- although two of them could be shortened to fit in with TV schedules if there are delays.

Qualifying sessions will be held each morning, but the grid for the final race will be based on the second best lap times of drivers in the Sunday morning session. Now that is unique!

WA needs to be part of the championship for it to be properly national -- even though it is now billed as international it is still essentially an Australian and New Zealand series with just one other round, the opener in Abu Dhabi, this year.

And -- while there is talk of new rounds, perhaps in Asia -- it will remain primarily Australasian.

In dropping Barbagallo last year, ostensibly on occupational health and safety grounds, one V8 Supercar official labelled the venue "Third World".

The rift between the series organisers and the circuit operators has been patched up for now, largely as a result of some diplomacy by former V8 Supercars Australia director Geoff Jones and new chief executive Martin Whitaker.

However, tensions still bubble not far below the surface, and one emissary from the eastern states this week stoked the fire by calling the circuit a "seven-corner goat track with huge dust traps that hamper quality racing" and threw in a prediction of "another turgid meet".

Little significant change has been made to Barbagallo for this round, although an upgrade -- with more than $10 million from the WA government -- will begin soon after.

The big positive this weekend is simply the return of the country's premier series to a venue it should never have skipped and with a strong support line-up that includes a field of 27 for a round of the Australian Superbike Championship, the V8 Supercar development series, the V8 utes, the Porsche Carrera Cup and the Touring Car Masters.

After some rain in Perth early this week, a rarity in this day and age, mostly sunny conditions are forecast for the weekend.

The V8 Supercar "main game" championship is nicely poised after six races -- five of them won by Holden and the last at Hamilton, NZ, by Ford.

Jamie Whincup's lead was narrowed across the Tasman to 81 points, but just 51 points separate second-placed Rick Kelly and eighth-placed Alex Davison -- and that means seven drivers are less than one race win (150 points) off the championship lead.

Whincup always starts a race weekend as the man to beat, but Hamilton was a reminder than even he can make mistakes.

His Team Vodafone colleague Craig Lowndes has had a lot of success at Barbagallo. Most of it was a long time, although he did win the last race the last time the V8s visited Perth in 2009. And, while Lowndes is eyeing one-off overseas racing opportunities with a view to a Le Mans 24-Hour campaign, he is handily placed in third in the championship this season.

Of great interest this weekend will be whether the Kelly family team can continue the form it displayed in NZ and whether young Kiwi Shane Van Gisbergen can repeat his success after his maiden win -- and the first for Ford this year and the first in too long for Stone Brothers Racing.

The man most likely -- other than Whincup -- to star in the west, though, is Perth's most successful V8 Supercar product, Garth Tander.

He is a passionate advocate for Barbagallo and WA's place in the championship and has two wins under his belt already this year -- one in Adelaide and a non-championship race at Melbourne's Grand Prix.

For now Tander is a better chance than his new teammate and reigning champion James Courtney, who had a win in Abu Dhabi but is now languishing 13th -- and more than 300 points behind Whincup already.

Ford Performance Racing's Mark Winterbottom has already discounted Courtney retaining his title.

Winterbottom is likely to be proved right on that, although why he -- without a Bathurst triumph, a "main game" championship, or even a race victory this year -- would allow himself to be engaged publicly, and especially in the media, on that subject is something of a mystery.

Equal fourth with Tander this season, Winterbottom's focus needs to be entirely on achieving his first win this year.

He has history of success in Perth, winning all three races at Barbagallo in 2008, and is another who appreciates the importance of a round in the west.

"Perth is a great round of the championship. We should have come here (to race) last year and the whole build-up this time just proves that," Winterbottom said.

While admitting that Holden has done "a fantastic job" in the early rounds, Winterbottom claimed that "if I hadn't crashed in Hamilton I would be leading the championship without winning a race".

"Our time will come. We have some pretty exciting gear coming on the cars and we have some tracks coming up that suit us.

"I am hoping to get that first win this weekend. I don't think it is far off. It would be good to get that first one and then go from there."

But no one will be keener than Winterbottom to break his season's duck than Will Davison in the other FPR Falcon.

V8 Supercar Championship points after six races -- Jamie Whincup (Holden) 654 points, Rick Kelly (H) 573, Craig Lowndes (H) 552, Garth Tander (H) 543, Mark Winterbottom (Ford) 543, Shane Van Gisbergen (F) 534, Will Davison (F) 528, Alex Davidson (F) 522, Steve Johnson (F) 455, Fabian Coulthard (H) 441, Jason Bright (H) 414, David Reynolds (H) 354, James Courtney (H) 352, Todd Kelly (H) 338, Jonathon Webb (F) 326.

Teams championship -- Team Vodafone 1206 points, Ford Performance Racing 1071, Stone Brothers Racing 1056, Toll Holden Racing Team 945, Jack Daniel's Racing 936.

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