I couldn’t do much on the weekend as I was severely hampered by a lack of car speed and tyre degradation. As bad luck would have it things kept getting worse as the weekend moved on.

As I said my tyres were a big problem and they went away quite quickly in all the races. We thought we had a better management strategy in race three, but were struggling from the start when Paul Morris spun and I was told my fellow blogger Jonesy turned me around.

That incident cost me and by the time I pitted and had my car repaired I was always going to struggle to produce any sort of a result in the race. The only heartening thing for me was being able to pull out some good lap times.

The reason we struggle with the tyres at Eastern Creek is that we can’t seem to get any grip on the circuit. The car feels like it is on ice as it skates on top of the track. We have a similar problem at Bahrain and it’s related to the control tyre not being able to grip the circuit because of the mix of materials the track is comprised of.

If we were able to get a high grip level on the circuit we could quite easily do some of our best racing at Eastern Creek because of the long sweeping corners. Guys could run side by side through them with an opportunity for making passes on the outside.

The unfortunate thing is hardly anyone would see the passing moves live at the track because of what a poor venue it is for spectators. Fans can only really see down the home straight into turn one from the grandstand and it really is a shame, because from a driver’s point of view the circuit is a very good one.

From a personal point of view it was really good to see Will Davison win his first round. Despite the Holden/Ford rivalry it was also good to see DJR, who have been struggling financially, get a good result. It also shows just how even the series is with more teams competitive in 2008 such as DJR and Team BOC.

Hopefully we will be in that group once we get our new cars. Greg will have his in Hamilton and I will have mine in Perth. Greg gets his first because he is ahead in the championship which is a fair call.

Speaking of the new cars I checked out your livery Michael and will show it to the guys.

After the weekend we dropped from second in the team championship to fifth and we will be looking to regain those places in Hamilton.

I thought it was interesting that Skaifey was able to dominate in the first part of the weekend but then seemed to struggle a bit as the weekend went on. It was a little strange to see that happen, especially because of the dominance Mark has had there in the past.

A lot of people wonder why Skaifey hasn’t had the level of success he had when he dominated the sport and I think it’s a two part answer. The first is back in the day Mark had the best equipment in the sport and now there are probably eight cars in pit lane which are very similar to his. Also the level of competition has risen with more guys in the series capable of being as quick as Mark is.

I think Mark was trying too hard in the last couple of seasons to make up the pace but now I think he is back and 2008 will be a big year for him.

Todd Kelly has performed consistently in the Jack Daniels Commodore and is about where I expected him to be at this stage. The car probably isn’t a patch on the HRT machine he was driving last year, but Larry Perkins knows his cars and Todd certainly has a lot of engineering expertise of his own to help them improve.

Steve Richards had a huge moment with a mechanical failure at Eastern Creek and I would summise from driving past the wreckage that his car will not be salvaged and he will be in a new vehicle at the Grand Prix.

Speaking of the GP, it’s good to see Sprint Gas sponsoring the event and it’s one I am looking forward to. As regular readers know I love my F1 and will be trying to get access to some of the F1 team pits at the weekend.

I think their championship will come down to Kimi and Lewis Hamilton once again, but expect an improved showing from Mark Webber.

In terms of our race down there I wish it was points paying but there are some issues which prevent it. Like the race being telecast on the Ten network as opposed to Seven and I am pretty sure the F1 has a rule about other races on their program not being championship events.

In our format you can expect the usual suspects to bob up, but I really think Mark Winterbottom could have a car which is favoured by the Albert Park circuit.

JR

For all you Tasman fans out there I thought I would take you through how we landed our deal with Sprint Gas and what allowed it to happen.
 
We headed into December fairly certain that Rockstar would be our major sponsor. Then around Christmas time it came out the deal was looking shaky, which was a [...]