R4 PREV – Skaife is hot, the Valley is hotter
17/5/2002 10:31 (V8 Wire - Jason Whittaker) -
Mark Skaife is running hot. In fact, the only thing hotter this weekend will be the cockpit of his VX Commodore after a few exhausting laps of Darwin’s Hidden Valley Raceway.
It’s the V8 Supercars’ annual tropics excursion, but there’s nothing very tranquil about the setting. It’s arid, barren and hot. Damn hot.
As temperatures inside the mobile saunas soar above 60 degrees, keeping your cool is easier said than done.
Skaife does it better than anyone. A prodigious start to the season has the Holden Racing Team ace sitting pretty atop the championship standings after three rounds, with a commanding 378-point lead over Greg Murphy.
Hidden Valley, though, is not a happy hunting ground for HRT. Whether it’s the heat, the grainy surface or the marathon, high-powered main straight, the circuit remains the crack factory outfit’s achilles heel.
If the Skaife Express is to be derailed, even momentarily, then this is the weekend it could happen.
"Obviously the pace is there so I'll be trying to eliminate the negatives and go for another round win if I possibly can,” said Skaife, gunning for a fourth successive victory.
“Despite the championship lead I now have, we won't be backing off as it's still far too early and there are too many double-point events still to come to relax yet."
Stone Brothers Racing's Marcos Ambrose remains the biggest threat.
A win from Ambrose this weekend won’t be nearly as surprising as his Hidden Valley triumph last year. The unassuming Ford weapon has taken the fight up to the mighty TWR Empire this season and likes his chances up north.
That’s if he is not sick of driving. He got to Darwin the hard way, trekking the 4000km distance from the Gold Coast in a Ford four-wheel drive on a promotional trip with teammate David Besnard. And the pair spent yesterday behind the wheel of an armed ‘Leopard’ tank, as guests of Darwin’s Robertson Barracks.
"I guess the great thing about running at Hidden Valley at the weekend is that we won't have any kangaroos to dodge," Ambrose quipped.
"[At] Eastern Creek we were very consistent throughout practice, qualifying and the races themselves,” he said of his chances this weekend. “Now we need to take that next step and challenge for a round victory.”
Along with Ambrose and Besnard, former motorcycle champion Wayne Gardner will make another cameo appearance for the Stone brothers this weekend, after missing the pre-qualifying cut at Eastern Creek.
Pre-qualifying has been abandoned for the rest of the season, with an expanded 36-car grid to accommodate all the leading lights in Darwin – including embattled Queenslander Paul Morris, who has not started a V8 Supercar race since the opening round in Adelaide.
Craig Lowndes almost stole a win from former teammate Skaife in Sydney. He’s back in his new Falcon, rebuilt after a clash with Max Wilson at Phillip Island, and is “feeling good” about his chances.
Ford’s MediRace unit, now sponsored by Chubb Fire, will monitor Lowndes and the rest of the Blue Oval brigade like never before. Drivers will swallow a pill-sized sensor, designed by NASA, which will measure core body temperature and trasmit the data to a track-side computer.
"After starting medical monitoring at Bathurst last year and introducing the use of the CorTempT device at Sandown, Darwin will be critical in utilising the technology to monitor the Ford drivers in the heat of battle," MediRace coordinator Kim Flanagan said.
Racing begins on Saturday with a 20-minute sundown sprint. But tempers and the humidity will soar on Sunday, with two 100km torture tests to decide the round.
Practice begins this afternoon.
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