It was a weekend of ups and downs as we farewelled Oran Park. For me the ups of seeing the fans and taking one in particular on a hot lap outweighed the downs during the races.

When I met David Parsons (my hot lap winner) early on Friday morning complete with his family and friends I could tell he was excited and he proved that during a few flying laps around the Sydney circuit in the afternoon.

Coming down the pit lane he even got a bit emotional, because he was so chuffed that after many years of visiting Oran Park and Bathurst he finally got to experience driving one of the circuits. Personally that franked it for me, I had chosen the correct competition winner.

As for racing in the final round there were not a lot of good things happening. Even when I was going well in race one, I broke a damper which ended my charge. But I can say my starts were the best they have been all year and I owe a lot of that to former champion and ex-BJR team mate John Bowe, who put some time in to help me with them.

JB knows what he is doing and his advice helped a lot throughout the weekend even though I didn’t really get the results I desired.

The weekend was bigger than me though as Mark Skaife retired and Jamie Whincup took out the title.

I think Jamie is a great champion for the sport in the sense that he is a straight shooter when he speaks, is popular and has a load of talent.

Jamie also is not robotic and knows how to have a bit of fun. I particularly enjoyed his acceptance speech at the awards’ dinner on the Monday night. There were a few people who knocked Jamie early in his career and told him he wouldn’t amount to much and he certainly showed them, so good on him.

I enjoyed the awards dinner, which Mish attended with me, looking lovely as always and then the ride day at Oran Park the next day. I even gave Mish a trip around the circuit which she enjoyed after the first time over ‘the dogleg’.

Then it was off to Melbourne for a ride day at Calder Park. Unfortunately due to the rain about twelve people missed out on rides.

Because it is used for drag racing the circuit is sprayed with VHT to grip it up, but in the rain it has the opposite effect, making the road extremely slippery and in that case insurance doesn’t cover us.

As for me I am now looking forward to the BJR Christmas party tomorrow night, which will be preceded with a bit of paintball. I just hope I don’t get as badly shot as Jason Richards did at his last crack at paintball. There were welts all over the place.

I’m also looking forward to my first Christmas as a father which should be special.

I also encourage everyone to be careful on the roads this holiday season and don’t rush. Your safety is more important!

Merry Christmas

Jonesy

I’m ready for a huge Grand Finale weekend at Western Sydney’s Oran Park Raceway. I’m also really excited to take David Parsons of Bathurst for a hot lap in my Team BOC Commodore after he was declared the winner of my ‘win a hot lap’ competition.
 
I’m hoping we draw a large crowd to the circuit [...]