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The Perth Undercard

05 May 2016
Can you name the seven V8 Supercars teams that will be racing in the support categories this weekend? Chad Neylon reveals them all.
3 mins by James Pavey
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The Perth Undercard has plenty of main game flavour.

Three V8 Supercars teams will be giving the next generation of stars a leg up in the Dunlop Series this weekend, while another three teams will take to the grid in the Australian GT Championship. One other team will compete in both!

Dunlop V8 Supercars

Prodrive Racing Australia is the team to beat again this year after a dominant start to the season.

Garry Jacobson backed up his Clipsal win at Phillip Island and comes into this weekend with a healthy 83 point lead over James Golding, who recently claimed his first race win for Garry Rogers Motorsport.

Brad Jones Racing will field its usual three cars this weekend, with the evergreen Andrew Jones still pulling podiums, while local teenager, Alex Rullo will line up for Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport.

Alex's dad Peter will also be racing a Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport prepared car – but that's not a Holden it's a Lamborghini, obviously not in the Dunlop Series.

Three races and only two sets of tyres will make for some tricky strategy calls.

Also watch out for fast drivers who have a bad result in race one, last year we saw them throw on a new set of tyres for the second race and charge through the field.

CAMS Australian GT Championship

This is the first time the Australian GT Championship has visited WA. Growing up in Perth it always felt like the big support categories never came over with the V8 Supercars, so it's great to see my home track getting two blue chip support categories this weekend.

Twenty one cars are making the long trip over the Nullarbor. This includes three Tekno McLaren 650S GT3 beauties, an Erebus prepared Mercedes AMG GT-S GT3 and Walkinshaw Racing's brand-spanking-new Porsche 911 GT3-R.

This is the latest generation GT3 from one of the most successful companies in sports car racing, being run by Walkinshaw Racing, a team with Le Mans and Bathurst victories in their bloodline.

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With former LMP2 ace, John Martin at the wheel this is going to be a successful combo.

Speaking of Le Mans, a former LMP1 podium winner in Marco Bonanomi will be racing this weekend. The Audi star will be filling in for Christopher Mies while the reigning champ is off racing in England this week. I wish I was a factory Audi driver.

As for who is going to win? That all depends on whether or not we get a safety car in the two 60 minute races that have compulsory pit stops.

Local Stuff

Trackside punters will be treated to some more local racing across the three days with the Historic Touring Cars out on track, as well as the Australian Drift Grand Prix on Friday and Saturday night.

The extremely popular True Colour Track Walk will take place on Sunday morning at 8:45am and is open to all ticket holders.

Chad's Fast Four

* Dunlop: Expect Jack Le Brocq to be fired up this weekend. He scored pole at Phillip Island but a botched start ruined his round. He won't do that twice.

* Dunlop: Todd Hazelwood starred here last year just missing the podium. I'm tipping him to spray some champagne this weekend.

* AGT: James Koundouris and Marcus Marshall lead the points. The first time Marshall raced at Barbagallo was in Formula Ford back in 2001 against Will Power, Jamie Whincup and Will Davison.

* AGT: There's plenty of ways to make power in a GT3. This weekend we'll hear V6, V8, V10 and V12 engines roaring around.

You'll be able to catch every Dunlop Supercars Series and Australian GT Championship race live this weekend on Fox Sports 506.

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