Clipsal 500 ..... Opinions

Dazz · 23 Mar 2003, 07:35 (Ref:544845)

Personally I thought Sunday's race was a cracker.

Lots of overtaking, lots of good moves, a few looney tunes and interest throughout.

I thought Skaife drove well all weekend, Ambrose was a little unlucky not to finish, Steven Richards drove well and kept clean to grab a heap of points, and poor Steven Johnson deserved to finish better than he did.

Russel looked very unhappy as well he should, and I'm sure we haven't heard the end of it.

But overall I thought it was a great start to the year.

rocket · 23 Mar 2003, 07:47 (Ref:544862)

spot on, sundays race was great some hard charging & some too hard. skaife deserved his win, pity about ambrose & johnson althuogh i cant figure out why when a ford is in a decent position something goes wrong 90% of the time

Jack racer · 23 Mar 2003, 08:15 (Ref:544897)

Could you tell me what happened to richards at the start?

pete55 · 23 Mar 2003, 08:25 (Ref:544916)

He was third into the first corner Jack.

Jack racer · 23 Mar 2003, 08:34 (Ref:544927)

Sorry Jason I mean. Glad to see Steve do well he is a good consistant driver and rarely gets the credit he deserves.

William Dale Jr · 23 Mar 2003, 08:55 (Ref:544969)

Maybe if Mark Noske swings by he could tell us his view of the Richards incident. I think he was right behind Jason when it happened.

Bad luck for Steven Johnson, Marcos Ambrose, Jason Bright and Dean Canto (for a while there it was looking good for me for the Fantasy Comp.).

Congrats to Team Dynamik for a top 10 finish (first Aurora-VY across the line), to FPR for getting two cars home in the top 10, Dumbrell for a solid start to the season, Lowndes for a great drive to make up 26 places and Skaife for winning, again.

A couple of other things:

- Does Steven Richards have the best karma of any driver in the series or what? He just motors on, driving around the leader's pace and manages to avoid the pieces as everyone else around him falls apart. Full credit to Richo for another great drive.

- What happened to Orrcon Racing? Both Larko and Bargs were running right behind Dumbrell down Bartels Rd on the last lap, but finished in 16th and 19th. What happened there?

The Tool Man · 23 Mar 2003, 08:58 (Ref:544972)

Yep Great weekends racing. Watched Superstars and yesterdays race last night when I got home from the Polling Booth after a hards days work.
Was delighted with such a competitive start to the championship and today made it even better. Two Different winners, plenty of dices and some great action.

What more could you want.

revhead_enigma · 23 Mar 2003, 09:12 (Ref:544990)

I think the race on Sunday was great, lots of pushing and shoving. I am so sorry that Johnson had trouble because he deserved a good finish. As usual Skaife had an easy one. Lowndes had a wonderful drive starting from last to come so far up the field was amazing.

Buckshot · 23 Mar 2003, 09:21 (Ref:545004)

Yeah have to agree, was a great race. Some great battles and some fantastic moments where absolute chaos reigned but most of the time nobody went off and racing resumed with only a couple of places lost.

Oh, and some fantastic passes through the infamous Turn 8 !

mmciau · 23 Mar 2003, 10:11 (Ref:545079)

The atmosphere in the Pit Stands was very good all weekend. Plenty of ribbing and point scoring and I enjoyed the meeting.

Overall, I hear 231,000 attended the 4 day carnival

Mike

Crash Test · 23 Mar 2003, 11:58 (Ref:545222)

It seems as though the BA is a much more competitive package, but it still seems to carry a fair swab of bad luck. At least with the points system this year, you can have one shocking round, and the two races at the Clipsal are effectively 1/2 points races, so it's definately not the end of the world...

Dazz · 23 Mar 2003, 20:08 (Ref:545615)

It was good to see that nobody came a gutser through turn 8, although there were some hairy moments. I mean how out of shape was Ambrose coming through there towards the end of the race

If this is a taste of things to come, with so many cars in a potential podium position, we should be in for a great year

23 Mar 2003, 21:05 (Ref:545705)

Dazz:

Quote:

It was good to see that nobody came a gutser through turn 8,

I think Jason Richards and Geoff Full might disagree on that one.

Crash Test · 23 Mar 2003, 21:25 (Ref:545735)

Plus it seems there were a lot of big ones in the BRutes, GT Performance, Martin Doxey Flight School etc...

23 Mar 2003, 21:27 (Ref:545737)

Not at turn 8, both the Brute Strength cars went in big time just after the Senna Chicane, Ward wrote off the RX7 when he punted Hemmes at turn nine, and that was where Doxey tried to take off.

jiminee · 23 Mar 2003, 22:09 (Ref:545801)

In reply to what happened to the Orrcon cars, Bargwanna tried a desperate late braking move or just locked up and ploughed into Larkham, this happened right in front of me, it kinda bummed my weekend, vene though I loved the result overall I was hoping Larko would get a good result, he worked hard all weekend and was almost up to the top ten but luckily it did not cost him too much in the end though, 4 places, as for his 'teammate' he could not get it straight again and had a few burnouts before heading for the line again.

jetsetter · 24 Mar 2003, 07:42 (Ref:546054)

Hopefully we get a few more rounds like this one to provide plenty of excitement.

DNQ · 24 Mar 2003, 08:08 (Ref:546066)

Yeah, great racing, Sundays race was the best I've seen for a long time, watchign cars three wide at occasions, fantastic stuff.

Crash Test · 24 Mar 2003, 09:12 (Ref:546096)

Actually, kudos to Ch10 for showing the battles down the field. They are probably always there, but we don't always get to see them

racer69 · 24 Mar 2003, 10:34 (Ref:546170)

It was a good spectacle, but alot of that three wide stuff and passing was on the laps just after the safety car had pulled in, not really racing, just desperate stabs.

Race 1 was a better 'race' in my opinion.

AussieV8 · 24 Mar 2003, 11:13 (Ref:546204)

Atleast it wasn't a presession like usual.

Great racing throughout the whole field.

D.R.T. · 24 Mar 2003, 12:21 (Ref:546265)

Quote:

Originally posted by mmciau

Overall, I hear 231,000 attended the 4 day carnival

Mike

I think some more Avesco manipulation could u say with that figure. Cuz bugger off they got that crowd figure.

Urhhh, the race was ok. Saturdays was very non excitin with cars thinkin about 2morow. Sundays was an improvments with some good exchanges, however as Racer said they were mostly after Safety Cars bunchin everyone up.
Once again it was Skaife on top and I dont think much will change this year, maybe Avesco needs to adopt a new qualifying appraoch, as I dont see anything stopping him.

Vandas · 24 Mar 2003, 22:34 (Ref:546909)

DRT,

I think you will find that the figure quoted would be pretty close to the mark.

Remember that the 231 000 people is a total for the 4-day weekend.

They had over 30 000 people there on the Thursday!!!!

As I was wandering around the grid before the start of the main race on Sunday I was blown away by the size and attitude of the crowd.

Also around the track the place was absolutely packed out.

231 000 is not a stretch, I think it is pretty close if not spot on.

Cam

24 Mar 2003, 22:44 (Ref:546911)

Hugh crowd and by the way, the figure is not AVESCO's but the promoters'. Some people will look for any excuse to put the boot in!!!

Blu_butterfly17 · 25 Mar 2003, 01:07 (Ref:546985)

I would love to make in there one day, but due to work (and lack of funds) i most likely won't be able to go.

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