Living the Good Life up North
Fun in the sun up north
As the eastern seaboard and southern states freeze through one of the coldest starts to winter, V8 Supercars drivers, teams and the like are left counting down the days until they board their flights to Darwin for the SKYCITY Triple Crown – an escape from the wintery blues.
It’s not only Darwin’s dry season climate that makes Hidden Valley such a popular event, but also the atmosphere produced up north at what is the Northern Territory’s biggest sporting event. There’s are a real party vibe at Hidden Valley, with the crowd close to the action at a track that offers some of the best vantage points of the season. And the pick of the bunch is the XXXX GOLD Retreat, which can be found on the inside of the track at section four, overlooking turn seven and beyond.
Heating things up off track on the Saturday night of the event will be legendary Australian rockers INXS featuring JD Fortune, who headline this year’s Rock ‘n’ Race concerts. Sunday night will see Short Stack and Bliss N Eso close out the event in style, with a free bus service operating around the track.
XXXX GOLD ambassador Jamie Whincup heads up north with a comfortable 262 points lead, and it’s hard to see anyone stopping the TeamVodafone flier as the second half of the season approaches. It’s up to teammate Craig Lowndes, Garth Tander and Jason Bright, the leading and most consistent performers of late, to mount a serious title challenge.
With only one set of soft tyres in play over the course of the weekend, strategy will be crucial over the two races. And it will be interesting to see how the form driver on soft tyres, Bright, copes on the hard tyres.
Darwin has thrown up some surprise results over the last few seasons – Michael Caruso’s first win, Alex Davison’s first pole position etc – so hopefully there’s more to come in 2011.
