Shane van Gisbergen is well aware of the adage that to finish first at the Bathurst 100, first you have to finish.
The 22-year-old Kiwi has raced in the famous event four times with a 13th-place finish with Stone Brothers Racing teammate Alex Davison in 2009 his best return.
He failed to finish in his debut in the event in 2007 when driving with John McIntyre, he finished 25th a year later with Jonathan Webb and last year, with McIntyre back sharing the driving duties, van Gisbergen was running sixth with just 22 laps to go when a bolt in the car's steering mechanism broke and he ended up classified 21st.
Van Gisbergen goes into the weekend third in the V8 Supercar series points standings behind former series champions Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes and is trying to treat the weekend like any other.
"It (Bathurst) is definitely the biggest race of the year but it's also just another round of the championship so in terms of how I approach it, it is really the same way I approach every other round which means staying calm and doing the best I can,'' he said.
"Bathurst's not the sort of place where you can just go out and get into it straight away. You have to settle in and build up to it steadily over the whole weekend.''
A tyre problem denied van Gisbergen and McIntyre a place on the podium in the main 500km race at the ninth round of the 2011 V8 Supercar championship at the season's first enduro event at Phillip Island last month, but they showed good pace in their Falcon.
They showed a different kind of speed during the Stone Brothers Racing team's traditional track walk around the 6.213km circuit on Wednesday morning, which kicked off van Gisbergen's preparations for this weekend's Bathurst 1000.
Practice at the Mt Panorama circuit begins today (Thursday) and continues into tomorrow with qualifying on Friday afternoon. The Top Ten Shootout is on Saturday afternoon and the 161-lap race starting at 12.30pm (NZT) on Sunday.
2011 V8 Supercar standings -Points after Rnd 9 of 14
1. Jamie Whincup 2145
2. Craig Lowndes 2053
3. Shane Van Gisbergen 1716
4. Rick Kelly 1585
5. Garth Tander 1548
6. Will Davison 1544
7. Mark Winterbottom 1447
8. Steven Johnson 1411
9. Alex Davison 1334
10. Jason Bright 1280
11. Lee Holdsworth 1275
12. Fabian Coulthard 1275
13. Tim Slade 1190
14. Michael Caruso 1044
15. Greg Murphy 1036
16. Steve Owen 989
17. James Courtney 985
18. David Reynolds 976
19. Jason Bargwanna 974
20. Paul Dumbrell 952