A tight hairpin, the rain coming in and a coming-together between Mark Skaife and Russell Ingall made for a pretty good opener for the return of the V8 Supercars to Tasmania, and through it all Marcos Ambrose increased his title lead.
There was plenty of incident in the race, the crucial moment for the winner coming as he and Marcos Ambrose pitted as soon as the compulsory pitstop window was open. Ambrose’s attention once more was on the Kmart car in the rear-view mirror and the ‘I’m trying to win a championship here’ Ford-man was far more circumspect than the young charger, and the Kmart team and driver made a far better pitstop and Kelly was back on track with vital track position and a very fast Commodore under him.
Ambrose had been off to a great start, slipping into second place on the first lap but he had lost that position to the lead HRT Commodore of Todd Kelly with a simple-enough manoeuvre at the hairpin.
The second HRT car in contrast was once more off to a poor start, but things would get worse for four-time champ mark Skaife as the race went on.
The tight Symmons Plains hairpin provided the predicted action from the very first lap with Paul Morris getting sandwiched and retiring from the race soon afterwards. “Not much left of the front and not much left of the rear, Paul Dumbrell arrived and used me as a brake,” explained Morris afterwards.
As soon as the first pitstop window was open the front-runners were in with only three laps completed. The general consensus seemed to be an early stop, but a couple of team managers had their eyes on the horizon and could see the rain-clouds gathering. Team Kiwi and Tasman Racing were the two greatest exponents of this train of thought and Craig Baird and Jason Richards stayed out very late and were pitted on lap 28 and 29 respectively, both returning to the track with wet tyres as the rain had started.
