First to 300: Bathurst to host historic Lowndes milestone
This year's Repco Bathurst 1000 will be “special” for Craig Lowndes, who will record a milestone never seen before in Supercars history.
The seven-time Great Race winner will become the first driver to record 300 ATCC/Supercars round starts. Tickets for this year's Repco Bathurst 1000 are on sale now.
Lowndes will bring up the unique accolade at Mount Panorama, driving alongside Declan Fraser in a Triple Eight wildcard.
“I am so excited about it,” Lowndes told Supercars.com.
“I think that over my career it has been nice to come up with some great milestones, like being the first in the 200 and 600 clubs, and now have the 300 clubs, it's a nice number to have.
“It’s nice to have it at a track that I really hold highly valuable to me, in the sense that I've always wanted to win Bathurst, it's a track that I grew up watching.
“It's nice, nice to roll out in the 300 club there.”
October’s Great Race marks Lowndes’ 29th consecutive Bathurst start; he hasn't missed the iconic enduro since his 1994 debut.
Lowndes made his full-time debut in 1996, and did the title-Bathurst-Sandown triple.
He won championships in 1998 and 1999, all three with the Holden Racing Team.
His next Bathurst win came in 2006 for Triple Eight, and five more came in his next 12 starts.
Lowndes' 14 Bathurst podiums is an outright record, ahead of mentor Peter Brock, Jim Richards and Larry Perkins (12 each).
As fate would have it, Lowndes will reach his 300-round start milestone when Supercars takes to the Mountain on October 6.
“I might pass out blowing out all the candles!” Lowndes said.
“It's always going to be special going back to Bathurst, and the 300th is just the icing on the cake in some regards.
“But our main objective and job is to try and do the best we can with Declan [Fraser] and myself.
“Having #888 back on the car again, that's nice for me, it's a bit sentimental because it's been a number that I've carried for a long time with this team.
“Now being the lead driver again, I keep saying it’s like going full circle because now I'm the teacher teaching the student.
“Being back around the garage again has been interesting for me, and nothing has really changed.
“But having all the old crew back, it's been really nice.
“I think we will go there with a lot of confidence knowing that if we do our job, as drivers, we will get a fast car that we can be up the front there somewhere and be hassling the rest of them.”
Lowndes took to the #888 Supercheap Auto Commodore at Queensland Raceway on Wednesday for the team’s second wildcard test day.
It comes after the duo first tested the Triple Eight wildcard in June.
It was all systems go at the Ipswich venue, with the pair focussing on important processes ahead of the 1000-kilometre endurance race.
After practising driver changes for the first time, Lowndes was impressed by Fraser’s improvement throughout the day.
“It’s a bit of a whirlwind for him at the moment, because there's so much information coming in,” Lowndes said.
“Declan has grown in leaps and bounds this year, he has matured a lot, even though he's only still young.
“He's really absorbed a lot of things throughout the year, he's been to every race track, he's been into debriefs and prebriefs and, and himself, you know, understanding what the ZB’s are like over his Super2 car.
“We’ve got processes in place, and we've got Andrew [Bell] as our car controller, and he's very calm on the radio, which I think is also good for Declan, to just have a smooth lead in.
“We know when we get to Bathurst, it's going to be a really quick entry to our pit bay, because we're going be down the pit entry end.
“It’s just working out how we're going to orchestrate that and make that work properly and seamlessly.
“We'll have a lot of time coming out of pit lane, but not going in.
“So again, it’s just getting that in the back of your brain already, and getting Declan used to pulling his helmet air out, the radio out, then getting out, and taking out his little booster seat.
“But it's all those processes and today has been all about that.
“I think he will go away from it, absorb it, and he will understand it.
“The good thing about him is he is in the workshop all day, every day, he is eating it, breathing it, and he knows it.
“I think that as we go through the week of Bathurst, he will just get stronger.”
The wildcard is set for one more test day before October’s Repco Bathurst 1000.
Tickets for this year's Repco Bathurst 1000 are on sale now.
