I just got back from a pedal on my bike with Damien White. It’s a decent day but a bit overcast for my liking. It was a good ride though.

The big news for us is that Brad can’t drive Bathurst either, his back is giving him hell, which is a shame and we are all hoping he gets better soon.

This means our driver pairings will be the same as Sandown. I will drive the number 12 car with Simon, while Damien and Christian drive the number 14 car.

Speaking of Sandown, I am disappointed to see the 500km race is being moved to Phillip Island next year. While it’s a great circuit it’s not the traditional home of the lead-up race to Bathurst. I’m a big believer in keeping tradition within sport and as we attempt to grow ours I think we need to stay in touch with the past. It was a bad move when the endurance lead-up went to Queensland, and I don’t really agree with this one.

I would compare it to the AFL moving their grand final to Perth or Brisbane.

We had our test day yesterday and worked on many of the things we did before Sandown; plenty of brake pad and driver changes as well as working on the steering rack and power steering problems we had, because we don’t want them to occur again at Bathurst.

We’re well and truly on the road to the mountain and I’m excited!

 I did some driver training at Calder last week, and while I really enjoy teaching people about dangerous situations on our roads, the weather didn’t help. It was blowing a gale and making the time spent there a little uncomfortable.

After four days of that I finally got to go home and spend some time with Mish and our dog Buddy, going for plenty of walks and having a good time. It was great to spend time with Mish after being apart for a while, as I was racing and she was in KL.

Looking at motorsport on the world stage it was great to see Casey Stoner win the MotoGP world title. I’m sure it would be a huge weight off of his shoulders to win before Phillip Island, and now he can relax and enjoy the race. It was good to see him thank anyone who has ever helped him rather than get big-headed about the whole thing.

The F1 battle will heat up this week as Alonso and Hamilton resume their battle. Everyone has jumped on Fernando over the ordeal, but I think it’s good to have competition within the team. Having said that, McLaren seem to foster this sort of behaviour as it has happened before.

Next Monday I have a Ford fan day and I will post more details as they become available. Then it’s up to the mountain on Tuesday night for my favourite race of the year.

Jonesy

It certainly wasn’t the best weekend I have had this season.
 
It was disappointing as we had a very quick car in all three practice sessions on the old tyres, but when we switched to green tyres we lacked the pace and grip of some of the other cars.
 
Even so we were only half a second [...]

I put Mish on a plane at the weekend and within two hours of touching down in Kuala Lumpur she texted me to let me know the credit card was getting a workout. She loves to shop and I’m happy she is having fun.
 
I did some shopping of my own today and finally bought myself [...]

Thanks to everyone who entered my ‘hot lap competition’ over the last month.
 
I went through the entries and after a lot of consideration have selected Mr. D Dowling as the man who will take a tour of the garage and a hot lap with me at Sandown raceway this weekend.
 
Jonesy