Driver moves interest Skaife.

The Holden Racing Team is in a minority next season as it keeps its driver line-up of Mark Skaife and Todd Kelly, but the moves elsewhere are giving four-time champ Skaife cause for interest.

Skaife believes an unprecedented level of driver movement between V8 Supercar Championship Series seasons translates into two things: a fiercely competitive sport and an intriguing final round at the BigPond Grand Finale at Eastern Creek in Sydney this weekend.

Almost half of the 20-strong championship teams will have at least one new face in their garages next year, something the five-time champion believes is endemic of a very healthy and intensely competitive sport.

The most high profile movements, in no particular order, are Craig Lowndes going from Ford Performance Racing to Betta Electrical, Jason Bright from PWR to FPR and Greg Murphy from Kmart Racing to PWR, to name a few.

Interestingly the championship's most powerful teams from Ford and Holden - Stone Brothers Racing and Skaife's Holden Racing team - remain unchanged for 2005.

"There certainly hasn't been in my time, or even since the inception of the Australian Touring Car Championship, that has resembled this one in terms of driver movement," Skaife said before he got down to business at Eastern Creek.

"What is does is reflects modern sport. Much like the AFL where they have their off-season recruiting and draft, our sport goes through a period where teams actively seek ways to gain any competitive edge they can.

"This is relatively new territory for us. It is not uncommon in Formula One for teams to continually be looking out for an opportunity to secure more experienced drivers. As the stakes continually rise in our sport this has been stressed even more.

"It demonstrates that the level of competitiveness of track is just as fierce as it is on track."

Skaife said that movement did not always guarantee immediate success. He recalled his 1997 move from Gibson Motorsport to the Holden Racing Team where he, even as a previous champion, played a backseat role to Craig Lowndes.

"I was the new kid on the block in the team and it took me a good year to make the complete transition," said Skaife.

"It's actually quite a complex thing when you sit down and analyse it. There are so many different factors and variables that a new driver brings with him.

"It also means that we are going to have a very interesting championship next year."

For HRT and SBR, whose gun drivers Marcos Ambrose and Russell Ingall will be out to grab first and second in the championship at Eastern Creek, they will return next year with the same teams.

"The positive aspect for us is stability. For Todd and I to know we are rolling into next year in a very stable environment is the upside of these things," Skaife concluded.