KEY POINTS:
Around the world there are many great race circuits - Monaco, the Nurburgring, Brands Hatch, Laguna Seca to name but a few. These courses, and the races held on them, have an aura that transcends mere mortal circuits. They evoke images of master drivers at their best and
titanic battles. Australasia has its own great race theatre of drama - Mount Panorama.
This weekend will be the 45th running of the iconic Bathurst 1000 and it could be the most closely-fought race yet. Last year Ford won its first Bathurst in eight years when Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes squeezed out Rick and Todd Kelly to clinch the inaugural Peter Brock Memorial trophy.
This year's race is shaping up to be a four-way fight between the Toll HSV Holden of Rick Kelly and Garth Tander, the leading Triple Eight Falcon of Lowndes and Whincup, the HRT Holden of Mark Skaife and Todd Kelly, and the FPR entry of Steven Richards and Mark Winterbottom.
The individual driver-fight for the overall series title has been put on hold as various teams put every effort into trying to be the 2007 king of the mountain. The four leading teams have combined their top drivers for a tilt at the title, and the sheer pace of these, and other drivers, could turn the endurance race into a sprint.
With the eight drivers mentioned filling the top eight places on the Supercar V8 series table, it's sure to make for a bun fight for track position in what will be very tight racing. Unless it rains of course, then all bets are off, as there's nothing like a wet Bathurst to level the playing field.
With the potential four-way battle occupying everyone's mind, two teams with Kiwi drivers are poised nicely just under the radar.
Four-time Bathurst winner Greg Murphy is paired with fellow Kiwi Jason Richards, himself a podium finisher in 2005. Combined they have more than 20 years' experience on the mountain, and last year Richards was consistently running in the top two until the car was retired.
"We're continuing to work away on the car and make improvements and we're slowly closing the gap on the others," said Murphy. "A podium finish is definitely realistic, 1000km is a long way and as long as you've got reliability and everything going right for you, no doubt it's a possibility for us to win."
After a good showing at Sandown, being as high as fourth before the safety car ruined proceedings, Richards is looking forward to the weekend.
"HRT, HSV, 888 and FPR have shown good car speed all year and have now merged all their elite drivers together," said Richards. "But generally, everyone ranks us as the wild card in the pack, and certainly the Tasman cars have always shown good speed around the mountain and last year we qualified fourth."
The other pairing to keep an eye on is Paul Radisich and Craig Baird.
At Sandown, Radisich shared the car with series leader Kelly, finishing second, while Baird shared driver duties with Tander, finishing fourth. Radisich and Baird know Bathurst well, Radisich with two Bathurst second placings and Baird finishing fourth in 1997.
But in the 44 races so far, only 46 drivers have stood on the podium as winners and of those, only 15 have managed it more than once. It's a hard race to win once, let alone twice or more.
