Yes it was the weekend a few days ago...the one weekend where every other form of sport I follow can go and get stuffed, NASCAR included.

Mount Panorama was the location as the V8 Supercars revved up for their Daytona 500, only ours is longer; the Bathurst 1000.

161 laps around the 6.21km long, arguably, best racing track in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the most challenging in the world.

The map doesn't do justice to just how steep the track is.

The outright lap record is held by Kiwi, Greg Murphy, in his Holden Commodore with a time of 2:06.8594 in 2003...and he would've gone quicker but he changed down to first instead of third through the Dipper.

Anyway, practice began on Thursday and saw the #17 Jim Beam entry of Steven Johnson and Will Davison (we use codrivers down here remember) at the top of the timesheet but it was Saturday when the first ten cars were sorted in the 'top ten shootout'. Basically, the fastest ten cars after the last qualifying session is finished on Friday get to battle it out in a one-lap race against the clock. The order starts from the slowest of the ten while the fastest guy on Friday goes out last knowing what time they have to beat.

This year it was the #6 Castrol Ford Falcon with Mark Winterbottom behind the wheel (Steven Richards letting Mark do the lap) who took pole position from the #2 Holden Racing Team (HRT) Commodore of Mark Skaife and Todd Kelly.

The car the rest would chase into turn one on Sunday.

The race got underway half an hour later than usual; 10:30am local time and it didn't go accoridng to plan for the #50 Supercheap Auto entry of Cameron McConville and David Reynolds who had a mechical failure on the warmup lap and put them out for the day. The start was a clean one for the front row and nothing much happened during the first few hours except for both Toll HSV cars (including the Championship leaders; Rick Kelly and Garth Tander who were paired up in the #1 car) had brake issues which led to lengthy pitstops under the sfaety cars (when they came out) to bleed the bakes.

The Ford Falcons appeared to have the pace on the Holdens but by lap 100, it was the #2 HRT Commodore who looked to have the race in their pocket. However, all wasn't as it seemed as they were concerned about fuel. See, around Bathurst, on full tanks, you can squeeze out 33, maybe 34, laps...they last pitted with 69 laps to go so it was touch and go whether they could make the finish on just one more stop like everyone else.

So the race then became a battle between the #6 Falcon of Winterbottm/Richards and the #888 Team Vodafone entry (and defending race winners) Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup. When Winterbottom pitted for the final time, the gap was 0.4 seconds and Whincup pitted a couple laps later...and blew it.

Jamie came barrelling into pitlane, locked up the front tyres and slid into the gravel trap. Amazingly he was able to keep the car moving and made it to his pitbox but they came out some ten seconds behind the #6 car.

Things then became interesting as the weather people reported rain and it came with around 25 laps to go. Richards was the first to suffer as he slid wide and smacked the wall as everyone was racing in the slippery conditions on slick tyres. He managed to pit to make repairs and change onto wets but it wasn't their day.

That left the #888 car out front, with the #17, the #4 (James Courtney and David Besnard in the car that Marcos Ambrose vacated) and the #51 (Greg Murphy and Jason Richards in the Tasman Motorsport Holden) right on their heels once the safety car came out to slow the field down. The first car on the wet tyres was the #34 Valvoline Commodore of Greg Ritter and Cameron McLean and he was lapping around a second a lap faster but was too far behind to make a serious challenge for the win.

In the end, Ford wound up with a 1-2-3 as Lowndes crossed the line ahead of Courtney and Johnson, with Murphy finishing fourth. All four cars finished line within two seconds to complete one of the most weird Bathursts I've seen.

I say weird since the first 100 odd laps were rather boring with only two cars retiring and not a lot of passing taking place on the track. However, once the skies opened up, the race came alive...something I still reckon NASCAR should take note of; rain is good and makes for brilliant racing.

So full credit to everyone at Team Vodafone and well done to their drivers for managing to go back-to-back at the Mountain. As a result of the Toll HSV cars having trouble and not scoring any points, Lowndes and Whincup now head the Championship.

Winners are grinners.

So that wraps up the most important racing weekend in Trans-Tasman motorsport and with three rounds to go, it's all on for the title.

And, just so I don't get any complaints from chux, ccr or anyone else...

...hope that makes you a bit happier, guys.