- V8 Party at Sydney's Oran Park RaceWay! -

    - Pics and words, by Chris Dobie

                                                                                                                                 

 

 

 

Sydney may have only been given one chance to see V8 Supercar action this year, but with the help of perfect late winter weather, harbor city fans certainly made the most of it, turning out in record numbers to Oran Park Raceway to be served up a fantastically organised event and sensational racing over two full-on days.

 

Deciding to cram both Round 7 of the main game Big Pond V8 Supercar Championship and Round 4 of the second tier Fujitsu V8 Supercar series into one race meeting initially seemed like a bad decision, but once the action got underway it turned into V8 heaven.

 

The Oran Park clash was the last sprint round before the all Important Enduro season kicks off with the Sandown 500 in Melbourne followed by the motor race that has a nation of petrol heads glued to their lounge chairs from sun rise to sun down, the Bathurst 1000km classic. The Oran Park round also marked end of reverse grid racing, and it was a little ironic that these races, in both categories, produced the most exciting action of the weekend.

 

For many and varied reasons Oran Park often proves to be a turning point in the Championship. What was looking like a wide open competition only a few months ago was starting to take on a familiar pattern as teams headed to the Western Sydney track, and by the time teams had loaded their cars back into the transporters on Sunday evening, Ford Hero Craig Lowndes was showing every intention of grabbing the 2006 title with both hands and running away with it. As one Journo put it “Lowndes was Sublime at Oran Park ”.

 

2006 didn’t get off to a shabby start for the T8 team but it was Lowndes’ team mate Jamie Whincup who grabbed honours and a lot of headlines by making his maiden win one of the most prestigious on the calendar, the Adelaide Clipsal 500.

 

By round 4 it was still anyone’s title with four different winners. But by round 5 Lowndes had become the only driver to win two rounds of the 06 championship then suddenly after Oran Park it was three, and the kid appears to be in a class of his own.

 

Looking back over the past 12 months things have been on the up and up for Triple 8 Racing. Six round wins in the past 12 months and the only Ford team to win a round this year shows a team hard to beat to the title.

 

It’s not so much Lowndes’ ability to win races (he only won one of three at Oran Park), it’s his uncanny ability to be able to stay out of trouble, have all the cards fall his way and be close to the front at the checkered flag, consistently. If fact, most would agree that the Triple 8 Falcon is not the fastest V8 Supercar, that appears to be the domain of The Holden Racing Team, but speed alone is not enough – you need a certain amount of luck and luck appears to have turned her back on the red team in recent years. There was a time when Skaife and the HRT boys couldn’t lose a race even if they tried. But these days if Mark Skaife is leading a race you could almost bet your house on something really bizarre going wrong, and Oran Park was no exception. A rare gearbox failure sidelined Skaife while leading race 1 convincingly.

 

So now it’s time to start thinking about the mountain, the legendary 1000km race and something Ford really need to do – Win the Bloody Thing! Ford has not won Bathurst this decade and if they don’t do it this year Ford Bosses will be having nightmares about one headline “Holden – a decade of Bathurst victories”

 

Many years ago, Ford Legend Dick Johnson said he would swap all of his 5 Touring Car crowns for another Bathurst win. These days there is a lot more prestige involved in winning the touring car championship but it’s still no Bathurst, Bring on the mountain.


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Girls !!  Girls !!  Girls !!

 

What better way to spend a lazy afternoon than down at the races!??

For Ford fans, the reward of seeing one of their own standing on the tall podium is an obvious pleasure! 

But then there's others, drawn by the power and allure of the big V8's no doubt, but also for the allure of the greatest decoration and embellishment that the track has to offer - the Grid Girls!!

Faithfully representing their sponsor, in all the passion and glory as do their race counterparts in their cars, albeit just a little less slippery when wet around the dangerous curves, the Grid Girls endure the heat, wind and sometimes rain and cold, to bear it all with a smile, a flash of their pearly whites and deep blue, brown and green eyes! 

For all they endure, and all they give, here's to the Grid Girls!! -a

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Excerpt from Edition 11 - Due September '06 !!

 

 

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The V8 SuperCars
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The V8 Super Babes
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