IN SOME cultures the number eight is lucky, and the more eights, the more luck.

WORDS & IMAGES: Mark Walker

A Bathurst 1000 victory this year for car 888 would be the eighth for driver Craig Lowndes, and the eighth for the Triple Eight Race Engineering equip.

There are numerous A-grade partnerships once again set to line up for The Great Race, and like last year, one to beat will be Lowndes with Jamie Whincup.

Going in their favour is the fact that there are plenty of questions to be answered regarding the other strong combinations entered: Triple Eight teammate Shane Van Gisbergen has never successfully sealed the deal at Bathurst, while Scott McLaughlin’s new co-driver Tim Slade has a best result in the 1000 of seventh, and only four top ten finishes from 11 starts.

Cam Waters and Will Davison will no doubt be strong, but is Tickford going to step be able to step up after a few grueling months on the road?

Will Chaz Mostert and Warren Luff have the pace and staying power? Ditto Nick Percat/Thomas Randle, David Reynolds/Will Brown and Anton de Pasquale/Brodie Kostecki.

For all of the strength in the field, there are also many possible weak links, especially so with the unusual build up this year.

Sure, Whincup has suffered a fraught run of Bathurst defeats since 2012, but the best in him has always been brought out when paired up with Lowndes.

Between the duo, they own 11 Bathurst crowns, including three straight wins as a combo between 2006 and ’08, with the pair having a grand total of 44 previous Great Race starts.

From their five drives together, they have a remarkable average finishing position of 2.4, with last year’s effort a lowly fourth, which was more the result of a roll of the dice on strategy than a lack of pace.

In a year when miles for co-drivers has been largely non-existent, there will be a premium placed experience, which Lowndes has in spades: his 27^th start this year will place him equal fifth all time with his former co-driving buddy Steven Richards, and veteran Bruce Stewart.

With 14 podiums from 26 starts, Lowndes has truly come into his own since joining Triple Eight in 2005, with his past 15 starts with the team notching up nine podiums.

In that time car 888 has led 390 circuits, and incredibly, from the 2,415 laps contested during in that period, the Lowndes machine has completed 99.3% of them.

While not a stat, the fact remains that this will be the final ever Great Race for the most successful marque in the history of the event; a win by the factory Holden squad in its final outing would be a fairy tale conclusion for the brand on The Mountain.

“The only race I’ve ever wanted to win anyway”

For Lowndes, despite all of his experience, one possible item that could count against him is a lack of recent seat time.

Although not alone in this boat, his last race start was at the Australian Grand Prix in March, where he campaigned in the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia’s lone race on the program, while he recently managed a handful of testing laps at QR in a Super2 car.

Otherwise, 2020 has seen an extended stint on the sidelines.

“That’s the craziness of it, for me, it’s been the longest drought outside of a race car that I can remember, even in the early days when I was doing Formula Ford and the other categories, you were always going to the club events, or driving them somewhere,” said Lowndes.

“I think all co-drivers are going to have to be on the ball, it’s going to come down to supporting Jamie and not making any mistakes inside the car.

“So yes, there’s going to be a lot of pressure on all of the co-drivers heading to Bathurst with limited seat time available coming into the weekend.

“I think last year we were in a great position… in hindsight, and we’ve looked back on it, we’ve dissected it enough to know that we probably should have tried to maintain our position and save fuel, but we did what we did.

“Jamie is in good form at the moment, the car seems to be fast, its winning races again, and for me that is a great sign, knowing that we are going to be well positioned coming into biggest race of the year, as it’s the only race I’ve ever wanted to win anyway!”

The 2020 of Things

There have been plenty of things switched inside out and back to front lately, with Lowndes’ role within the TV broadcast having to adapt on the run.

“I’ve really enjoyed it to be honest, my role at race weekends now has changed, I’m not sitting on the (hosting) desk, I’m on the ground running up and down pit lane, we’re feeding information back to Mark (Skaife) and Neil (Crompton), you know, tyre wise, who’s doing what, so I’m now more of a behind the scenes information person, as well as sharing the information live,” said Lowndes.

From this pit lane role, Lowndes has been in a privileged position to witness up close how the ever evolving season has impacted the people within the sport, especially the Victorian contingent.

“To be honest, I think everyone has survived fairly well, I think everyone is rallying together and we’re all supporting each other,” said Lowndes.

“It’s not uncommon if you talk to some of the Victorian drivers or teams, and they’ve been away for two and a half to three months… it’s sort of become a bit of a new normal lifestyle.

“I know that all of the teams and Supercars have been working really hard to make sure that physically they are all good, but also mentally they’re fine, because being away from family that long is tough, and I know that teams have brought up partners and families, and quarantined them at certain times.

“So everyone’s doing their best to make sure that mentally the families are strong, and everyone is doing their part to make sure that we continue to race.

“It’s been tough on the Victorian teams not being able to go back to their home base to be able to service cars, get things turned around, get new componentry put on cars, which has always been a tough part anyways.

“I think everyone has done exceptionally well for the conditions that we have had to deal with.”

The Bathurst Build Up

Lowndes has made a habit in recent years of taking his time getting to Bathurst, slowly rolling down the east coast with caravan in tow and fishing gear at the ready, turning onto the pit straight of Mount Panorama with AC/DC blaring on the stereo.

“I suppose the craziness of this year is that it has always been changing hour-to-hour, so the plan is still to do the road trip down, do the preparation as we’ve always done, get to Bathurst fresh, ready keen and eager, that’s the plan,” said Lowndes.

“Post Bathurst sort of is more the talking point at the moment, whether we can get back to Queensland, or whether we need to quarantine, there is that side of it that is still unresolved, but we’ll definitely get home at some point!

“Also, I think Bathurst as a whole will be a very different atmosphere because of the lack of crowds and no campers.

“It’s going to be an eerie feeling, because Bathurst is one of those events that you go to that you can actually hear the crowd, going across the top of the Mountain at the beginning of the race, and even at the end of the race, you can hear the crowd roaring.

“For me, that’s the atmosphere I’ve always loved, enjoyed, and always wanted to see, so this year going over the top with no crowd, it’s going to be a very different feeling for everyone.”