Mt Panorama, Bathurst. New South Wales. A few hours drive west of Sydney, this 6. 2 km track with the almost 2 km long ‘Conrod’ straight, is known worldwide. The cars take roughly 6 hours to cover 161 laps. For touring cars, ('V8 Supercars' in Australia) this is a long race.

As with all forms of racing, there will always be a difference between the top teams, and the rest. Even though V8 Supercars is a parity formula, with the cars resembling their road going counterparts in body shape only, the factory (GM) Holden and Ford teams usually lead the way. The exciting thing is, there are a lot of teams setting times within a few tenths of each other.

Pace yourself

Motor racing used to be all about outright speed. Generally, it still is - the fastest car usually wins the race. But strategy plays such a large part now, especially in an endurance race like Bathurst. 12 hour and 24 hour races involve pacing yourself, but with a parity formula, V8 Supercars need to run almost flat out for the whole race because its 5 or 6 sprint races all in a row.

Do you want to do a 15 lap last stint, or 25-30 lap last stint? Everyone will probably get the fuel level right, but fresh tyres make a difference!

So, it all comes down to when you make your last pit stop. Safety cars are a common sight – will there be one anywhere near when most cars are filling up for the last time?

The most common phrase from the commentators these days is “buy yourself a position in the final stint”. Its all about being in the top 10 near the end, with a car that is faster than the rest.

888 straight

I'm looking forward to seeing the 888 Vodafone car (it's just like F1 really) of Craig Lowndes and Mark Skaife go for the win. Some of you may recall that Lowndes was once an F3000 team mate of that NASCAR driver Juan Montoya. You might also recognise the name of ALMS star David Brabham going around today. 888 is not the only British influence, with the Ford Performance car of Mark Winterbottom run by Prodrive.

The official web site v8supercars.com.au has live timing and plenty of other information. You can read some fun facts about Bathurst here and a preview by James Courtney.