It was announced earlier this year that the Ipswich 300 would be one of two ‘Sprint’ tyre events that will run entirely on the softer compound rubber, with another three events to utilise both the SP Sport Maxx ‘Sprint’ and SP Sport Maxx ‘Control’ tyres in conjunction over the same weekend.

It will be interesting to see what strategy drivers utilise, whether they go hard early and suffer later in the race, or whether they conserve the tyres at the start to come home strong.

The guys with a more gentle style of driving generally make the ‘Sprint’ tyre hang in longer. Teams getting the chassis set up right so it minimises rear tyre wear will also be a much more critical factor at the event.

I am hoping that it will really make racing interesting and unpredictable as drivers cope with varying tyre performance. Dunlop have contributed enormously to the interesting racing with the development of the SP Sport Maxx ‘Sprint’ tyre, it is everything the V8 Supercars asked for and more!

Until next time,
drive safely

FPR driver Mark Winterbottom claimed the overall honours, but strong performances by Davison and a poor weekend for Ford’s Jamie Whincup has seen the HRT driver cut Whincup’s championship lead to just 32 points going into the next round at Phillip Island.

Davison’s teammate Garth Tander also had a good weekend, claiming a win and second place on the opening day’s two races. Winterbottom finished with two victories from the weekend’s four race events, while Ford’s Craig Lowndes picked up the remaining race win.

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1 Jamie Whincup (TeamVodafone) – 2554
2 Will Davison (HRT) – 2513
3 Garth Tander (HRT) – 2182
4 Craig Lowndes (TeamVodafone) – 2067

I remember racing back in the eighties at events that featured both the cars and bikes, and they were always a great success bringing together some of the countries leading motorsport drivers and riders at one action-packed weekend. With Dunlop the tyre of choice in both the V8s and the Superbikes, it is a great fit for their motorsport platform as well.

At the end of the day though, motorsport is in the entertainment industry so anything that adds value for the spectators can only be a good thing. In addition, the Superbikes will benefit from the added exposure they will receive from the huge audience that the V8s have, and the V8s will have an added feature on their undercard for the fans to enjoy. It really is a win-win situation and Phillip Island is the ideal location with the track great for both forms of racing.

One of the biggest challenges to the concept is that not all tracks are suitable to host both categories, primarily due to safety requirement differences such as fencing. There are quite a few facilities where it is possible though, and if it works there is no reason why this won’t become a regular fixture on the calendar next year.

Everywhere you looked around the entire city and track it was a sea of black and yellow with the Dunlop brand on just about everything. One of my favourite things away from the racing up there though was definitely the Dunlop Driving Arcade in the paddock area where fans could meet some drivers, have a go on V8 Supercar simulators, use the FPR wheel changing machine or get a tattoo from the Dunlop grid girls!

Back on the race track, quite often new street circuits can be quite fiddley. At Townsville though it was actually really good with a number of flowing fast sections mixed in with hard braking opportunities and a great full throttle kink in main straight. All of this made for exciting weekend of racing.

Dunlop , Townsville and the V8 Supercars are all on a major winner with this excellently presented and conducted event and I would not at all be surprised if it gets the V8’s ‘Event of the Year’ award. It has really set a benchmark for all sporting events and was the perfect platform to launch the SP Sport Maxx TT to the public.