With Oran Park holding its last race meeting next weekend, it’s a great opportunity for one lucky reader to experience the iconic Sydney circuit from a very different perspective. Just get your entries in before midnight on this Sunday November 30.

Anyway, before I look ahead to Oran Park and the Grand Finale, I will have a look back at the wild, wintery weekend that was the Tasmania round.

I wasn’t quick enough in qualifying and struggled to get race pace in the car. It’s tough to get a good result when it’s not coming together and you are missing a piece of the puzzle with the complete package.

I take my hat off to Jamie Whincup who appears to have the championship in his keeping after another round win, his fourth in a row.

Although, had things gone differently when he was rounding Jack Perkins in qualifying, Jamie may not have had the championship at his mercy. The fact that Jamie missed Jack was lucky for both of them because contact could have made things a lot worse, possibly even ending either driver’s weekend.

That sort of incident is always on the cards in Tasmania during qualifying because by the time the guys at the rear of pit lane leave the person who left from the front is ¾ of the way through their lap.

Overall I don’t think there was much of an excuse for Jack to be where he was. In the drivers briefing we agreed if we were on a slow lap we would hang to the left at the hairpin and turn seven.

Jamie came past me, headlights blazing into the hairpin and I stayed to the left, Jack didn’t at turn seven and Jamie spectacularly smashed through the foam signage.
 
I was happy the first race of the weekend threw up a new winner in Todd Kelly. Todd’s not really new to winning, but what he has done for Jack Daniels Racing in terms of helping develop the car has been nothing short of amazing.

From day one people have been saying how good Todd is under the bonnet and it looks as if he has really helped to turn things around for his team and to see new colours on the podium is a huge achievement and good for the sport.

There has been a lot of talk about having a second round in the Middle East. If that was to take place then it seems likely it would occur in Abu Dhabi the weekend after Bahrain, which I think would be the best time to do it. However, like Bahrain, it would only be economically viable for the teams if the promoter paid a large sum for us to go there.

While we were in Tasmania Mark Webber had his infamous bike crash and, as a guy who likes to go cycling, I feel for Mark, but I also think he is very lucky to have escaped with the injuries he did. Head on accidents rarely end well and for Mark to even be alive I think he should feel lucky.

At home Koby is growing and Mish and I are looking to celebrating his first Christmas with him in a month’s time.

Jonesy

You can experience the thrill of a lap in a V8 Supercar with me in the Team BOC Commodore!
 
As part of Oran Park Raceway’s final ever V8 Supercar race in December and thanks to Team BOC and BigPond, I’m giving away a Hot Lap to a lucky winner who will get the opportunity to enjoy [...]

I’m just about to jump on a plane to Bahrain for the Desert 400 and I’m really looking forward to getting overseas for our one truly international event.
 
But before I get on to Bahrain, what about the Brazilian Grand Prix last night!
 
Felipe Massa gave it everything in his Ferrari and it looked like Lewis Hamilton [...]