J-Dub back on top at Hidden Valley
There’s always plenty of rabble rousing at Darwin and this year’s edition was no different. Outside of the racing – and sometimes even during it – at Hidden Valley’s Skycity Triple Crown, there was plenty of fun to be had. It was great to see Mark Winterbottom bounce back from a couple of shocking events, scooping pole position for the 120km Saturday race and then winning it. The most surprising form came from Alex Davison, who landed pole position for the 200km Sunday race but an electrical problem in his Stone Brothers Falcon forced as early finish to his day, leaving none other than back-to-back champ V8 Jamie Whincup to pick up the pieces.
Pic: J-Dub back on top of the podium
Credit: Justin Deeley
It was a good result for J-Whincup’s TeamVodafone, who earlier in the day helped celebrate the birthday of fellow driver Craig Lowndes. Holden organised a cake which was more like a work of art in the shape of a crocodile. After happy birthday was sung to Lowndes, in true mateship (and for a few laughs) the birthday boy cut off a massive chunk of the cake and handed the first piece to J-Dub.
Whincup has often said he catches glimpses of the race from the big screens when he is steering the car but his Ford rivals went one better during the Sunday race at Darwin. Each of the 29 cars were issued with one set of soft tyres to use during that race which meant drivers on them easily overtook those on the control tyre. This happened to current championship leader James Courtney towards the end of the race as he watched Frosty and then Shane van Gisbergen overtake on their way to finishing second and third. On the harder tyre Courtney quickly yielded to Winterbottom and then the Giz, but not before he had a bit of fun with the young Stone Brothers racer. When van Gisbergen sidled up against the Jim Beam racer, they swapped friendly hand gestures.
“It was pretty funny because I looked over and was trying to get his attention and then he started waving at me so I was giving him Vs (with a forefinger and middle finger),” Courtney laughed.
“There was plenty of time on the straight. We were cruising along for ages, there was plenty to ‘talk’ about.”
While the Northern Territory Government puts on an awesome show for the good people at the Top End, it definitely deserves a mention for having the biggest ‘whoops’ moment of the weekend. Many at the track were bemused at the fanfare behind a politician’s announcement that the government had “just inked” a contract with V8 Supercars to ensure the races stay in NT until 2018. The only problem with it was the same announcement had been made last year. D’oh!
The next event of the 2010 V8 Supercar Championship is the Sugrogen Townsville 400, which takes place from July 9-11.
