Gore banking on WPS success at Bathurst.

Craig Gore, the owner of WPS Racing, believes that his team are ready for the challenge of Mount Panorama this weekend and are more than capable of a top five finish in the Bob Jane T-Marts Bathurst 1000.

Speaking in his regular column on the team website, Gore said he feels that the two car team of David Besnard and John McIntyre, and Alex Yoong and Neil McFadyen, is on track for its best result of the year so far.

"I'm not one for making ballsy predications about our prospects for a big result but I can't fault our preparation going into this race," he said. "I always tell it as it is and this time I think we are going to get the result.

"Our engine program is working well and Wal [team engineer Ian Walburn], Stu [engineer Stuart King] and Keith [team manager Keith Evers] have done a fantastic job to get us into a competitive position.

"The team is ready, the drivers are ready, the cars are ready and I'm so ready that myself and five mates have pooled $100,000 and we've been looking for someone to take a bet on us finishing in the top five.

"We can't get the bet set at the moment but I reckon if we keep on the black stuff and keep out of trouble then maybe a podium finish isn't out of the question."

Besnard, who will share the #23 car with McIntyre, has competed at the mountain for the past four years but, despite having led the race on two of those occasions, he is yet to finish the great race.

"It's my fifth trip to Bathurst and this time I'll be looking to finish. If we can do that then the chances are we'll post a good result," he said. "I've led the race a couple of times and actually looked like winning in my first race there but it wasn't to be."

Besnard will be lining up at Bathurst only a day after returning from the US where he is having his second test in a Champ Car to prepare for his pending drive in the Lexmark Indy 300 on the Gold Coast.

Co-driver McIntyre admits that racing at Bathurst is a dream and he hopes to get a lot of support from fans in his native New Zealand

"As a co-driver I have a very succinct job," he said. "David will do the majority of laps and I'll then drive to the team's instruction.

"I have been watching Bathurst since I was a five-year-old and it is one of my life dreams to race there. I'm not sure if people realise how big this race is in New Zealand. There is a heap of interest over there and quite a few of the drivers from the series are household names."

The drivers in the second WPS Racing entry, Yoong and McFadyen, are similarly enthusiastic about racing at Bathurst.

"I competed in the 24-hour race last year and it's a great track," Yoong said. "It is quite a well known circuit internationally and it is a race that I've been looking forward to competing in for some time."

Yoong returned to Australia last week after competing for Mobil 1, with support sponsorship from WPS Racing, in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia at the new Shanghai International Circuit in China - where the V8 series will go next season.

"The crowd was pretty enthusiastic and the track was quite good," he said. "I don't think the V8 boys will have any issues adapting to it all next year."

McFadyen is looking forward to returning to Bathurst after a successful Formula Ford campaign there last year, where he picked up a first and a second place.

In an effort to give McFadyen greater track time at Bathurst, Gore has negotiated a Konica drive over the Bathurst weekend. He will compete in a WPS Racing Ford AU in the Konica event.

"It will be like competing in two Bathursts in one weekend," he said. "It is definitely a big bonus for me to compete in the Konicas as it will give me more miles around Bathurst."

Aside from its two-car Ford team, Wright Patton Shakespeare also sponsors the Safety Car program in both the V8 Supercar Championship Series and Konica Minolta V8 Supercar Series.