REMEMBER the elements of the Supercars paddock and fandom that complained about the mixed-tyre races being ‘Fake’ racing after the second trip to Sydney Motorsport Park last month?

WORDS: Richard Craill IMAGES: Mark Horsburgh

I wonder if after today’s race at Darwin they might be willing to change their tune, even if only slightly, and admit that as a show Sydney was bloody good.  

I wouldn’t call it a dud, but today’s Race 16 at Hidden Valley certainly lacked the theatrics and the drama of the Sydney events, and to a lesser extent last Saturday’s top-end tussle, offered up.

‘Fake’ they may have been, but god they were good fun to watch.

Darwin’s low degradation just doesn’t create the kind of wear that Sydney does – and we think Townsville will have next week – and as a result the race today was much more like what you’d expect with cars loaded with aero, difficult to follow closely and that overheat the front tyres when following.

Anyway, it is what it is and we can only pull the positives out of a race where Scott and Jamie at the front never even remotely looked like being beaten.

Much like F1, it was the battled behind the dominant leaders who made that race worth watching the highlights for again.

Those who pitted late had a definitive new-tyre gain late in the race and allowed them to make some moves and that absolutely saved today from being a snooze.

Like I said, it wasn’t a complete dud and there was still moments that delivered some Neil Crompton rev-limiter nudging in commentary and were defined by the voice as a ‘High Quality Exchange’.

And of that, there was no doubt – there were some great performances and solid battles.

Nick Percat’s charge though the field was excellent, as was the over-under between Courtney and Waters as they battled for a net third place during the pit stop sequence. Tickford have certainly tuned-up their cars in the five days between rounds.

The same could be said for Anton de Pasquale, who backed up his performance of seven days ago with some nice moves, an alternate strategy that saw him run longer than the cars around him, and a strong result.

Chaz Mostert has been awesome for WAU of late and his five-corner long scrap with Winterbottom within the final 10 laps was an outstanding bit of racecraft from the pair of them.

He then wrestled his way past Fabian a few laps later and despite his qualy struggles, Chazzy is stringing together some really strong results and deserves to be third in the championship – it’s absolutely on merit.

McLaughlin and Whincup’s shootout scrap was outstanding with both once again proving that they are the best there has ever been over one-lap in the history of Supercars.

Speaking of Whincup, the GOAT of old seems to have returned of late as he and Red Bull hit a purple patch of performance.

He gained 13 spots with a huge lap in the shootout and though he will be frustrated at being beaten by McLaughlin to turn one – probably on account of propping just before the lights went out – I think it’s promising signs for a team that has had a bit of a yo-yo season and form to date.

On the other side of the garage, SVG was oddly subdued before he got to the end of the race, on better rubber, and blazed his way past several cars – though eighth isn’t what he was looking for.

You can’t deny how impressive McLaughlin is, continuing to notch up race victories, but from a championship perspective the promoter in me wishes that Whincup would start pulling some points back out of the 17 driver.

Still, two races tomorrow to do that job, but the pressure and intensity at the front between the pair has ratcheted up recently, and the run to turn one today showed just how hard it is.

“If we hit, I knew he was still there,” McLaughlin said afterwards. Shows how aggressive he was in covering off the #88 into Turn 1.

This, I think you will all agree, is a good thing.

So, there you go. I think the biggest thing to take out of that race was that we could pull very little ‘Hot nor Not’ submissions for the Power Rankings out of those 38 laps. It was a race. It happened. Not a thriller by any extent, but with some decent battles late that helped make it interesting. We move on tomorrow to see what occurs.

Still, any day that the phrase ‘Time Certainty’ is never mentioned has to be a good day, and tomorrow young Lex Kelly is back on the broadcast.

Things to appreciate and things to look forward to as well.