Rising to the challenge issued by Murphy in the run-up to the race, the Sprint Gas Racing driver recorded the second fastest lap in Bathurst history, coming within four-hundredths of the 2003 target during morning practice.
“It is an awesome feeling knowing that you are a contender - the Sprint Gas Commodore is a jet,” Richards said, “You come to any event hoping to win, rather than making up the numbers and, prior to the event, we believed we were always in with a chance. The reality is we can win it.
“To get so close to 'Murph''s amazing lap time feels fantastic too. When you get close to it, you realise how good that time actually is. I've never driven such an impressive race car, and it gives you so much confidence. However, while having the two drivers with the fastest ever Bathurst lap times driving together is nice, it won't win us the race. We've still got a little bit of work to do.
“When we led this morning's session with such a fast time, I thought we were in with a great chance to start on the front row, and, if I'd been able to get more heat into the tyres, I would have been faster in the Shoot-out, for sure. I was only a couple of tenths down after the first two sectors, but lost too much in the third sector.
Will Davison and Steven Johnson will line up seventh in the best of the Jim Beam Racing cars, ahead of Supercheap's Russell Ingall and Paul Morris and Glenfords Racing's Fabian Coulthard and Alex Davison.
"Today was good," Ingall insisted, "Even if we'd done a 'blinder' lap, we'd have only been another row up to sixth, so I'm happy with today's performance. We've moved up a couple spots and the car's still in one piece. I was looking at a few of the other cars in the Shoot-out and they were messy. Apart from Tander's, our Commodore was the second best handling car."
The WOW Racing duo of Max Wilson and Brad Jones, which was allowed into the Shoot-out once it became clear that HSV was not going to get the #15 Commodore back on track, rounded out the top ten.
