Speaking Briefly at Adelaide
9/4/2000 10:33 (Shane Rogers) - In this morning's speaking breifly - Lowndes win 50th V8Supercar race, Jones and Ingall critical of tyre barrier placement, Safety Car pitstop chaos in the first race, Ten's RPM Chat Room a lockout, and Dick Johnson for Channel 10 commentary team?
** Lowndes Turns 50
Craig Lowndes has become the first driver to win V8Supercar Race according to Vee Eight Supercar Results and Information eXplorer (VESRIX). Lowndes clocked up 50 with a stunning win in race one at the Clipsal 500.
Lowndes ironically passed the man second on the all-time V8Supercar win list, Glenn Seton with only a few laps to go. Seton is on 40 wins, followed by Bowe 34, Skaife 32, Ingall 27, Murphy 16, Perkins 13 and Brock 12.
Out of those drivers with more than ten wins, the win percentage tells the story about Lowndes’ dominance of the V8Supercar category. Before Adelaide, Lowndes won 39.8% of his starts (that is two wins for every five starts), the next best is Murphy on 17.0%.
** Jones Critical of Brabham Straight tyre barriers after Crash
Many drivers voiced opinion to the media on the issue of tyre barriers lining the circuit after three cars crashed as a result of the barrier placed at the beginning of Brahbam straight.
Both Castrol Perkins cars hit the barriers before coming in contact with the wall, putting both cars out of contention. But the issue came to the forefront after Brad Jones clipped the barrier, turning his car upside down before hitting the outside retaining wall and spinning back into the centre of the circuit still upside down.
“It’s stupid” Jones said, on Network Ten’s Sports Tonight. Ingall was also critical of the placement of the barrier, while Perkins, the guy that pays the bills for both Ingall’s and his own mistakes, was less critical saying it was a “poor decision in hindsight”.
Perkins was lucky not to have three cars to repair after some heads-up driving from Dougal McDougall prevented the third Perkins’ maintained car from hitting the barrier. McDougall locked up coming on to the straight, but elected to use the run-off area, driving wide around the barriers.
** Safety Car Chaos at Adelaide
More problems with the supplementary regulations for the Clipsal 500 surfaced in the first leg of the race on Saturday. Both Garry Rogers (Valvoline/Cummins Racing) and Jeff Grech (Holden Racing Team) questioned officials decisions regarding whether cars, in particular the car of second place finisher Seton, had pitted before the caution period had begun.
The regulation stated that the “No competitor is permitted to commence (a pitstop is commenced when the car stops at its pit bay for the purpose of carrying out a Compulsory Pit Stop (CPS).) a CPS while the Safety Car Board is displayed, but any CPS commenced before the Safety Car Board is displayed will count as a CPS.
Many cars including Seton pitted just as the Safety Car Boards were displayed, both on lap 30 and lap 35.
Probably the most interesting part of the issue was Jeff Grech’s post race comments, saying that the officials deemed Seton’s stops legal and he was prepared to accept the decision. Grech, accept an official’s decision? We thought it was strange too, until we worked out that if Seton's second place was changed, Craig Lowndes’ main rival Garth Tander would have extended his championship lead by another four points!
** Ten’s Chat Room a lockout
Network Ten opened a motorsport chatroom at the RPM site for the first time, and it was a success, much more than expected. Unfortunately, they set the user limit at 25, which meant that only a small proportion of punters could get in. The V8SP10 tried from two different physical locations from 5:10pm until 5:40pm Eastern Time, without any success.
Considering it was only FTR driver Neil Crompton and Bill Woods in the chatroom, it was a success in terms of popularity, they’ve just gotta let everybody in to enjoy it.
** Dick Johnson, Humphrey B. Bear for Channel 10 commentary team?
On the subject of Channel Ten, the results of V8SP10 fanpoll number 20 suggest that Dick Johnson’s guest appearance on the commentary team for the Barbagallo Shell Series round was very well received.
Johnson polled 44.6% of the vote on the question asking who should be the third Network Ten commentator. Sheene (25%) narrowly defeated non-speaking children’s television character Humphrey B. Bear (21%). We won't mention how our man Mark Jones went...
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