Milestones for Caruso and Perkins in Perth

Both Michael Caruso and Jack Perkins celebrate milestone starts in Perth this weekend, with the Norton Nissan driver racking up 200 Championship race starts and Perkins - who returned to the category full-time this year - celebrating 50 round starts and 100 race starts.

Perkins admitted to having a difficult time adjusting to his Team JELD-WEN FPR Ford this season, but was hopeful of improving at a track he mastered in last year's Dunlop Series, taking a victory. He also finished twice on the podium in the Development Series in 2011 - his first and only outing at the circuit in a Ford.

"Milestones aren't really celebrated in our sport to the level they are with some ball sports, but if someone asked me how many races I'd done so far there is no way I would've said 100!" Perkins enthused.

"Looking back, the first 50 or 60 were an absolute blur, with such a steep learning experience in my first few years racing cars. I'm lucky to still be relatively young, but have quite a lot of experience now as well."

Ford Performance Racing stablemate Mark Winterbottom has had plenty of success this year, sitting on top of the points table. Perkins has been working hard to learn the intricacies of his new car and team, whilst absorbing as much as he can from his established teammate.

Perkins recently told v8supercars.com.au that gettingcomfortable in the car, and coming to grips with the unique handling characteristics of his Team JELD-WEN Ford has taken longer than he had anticipated.

"It's been great to be back in the Championship full-time with Team JELD-WEN but unfortunately we haven't produced the results that we know we are capable of yet. We came close in Tasmania, qualifying just outside the ten and running inside the Top 10 in race two on the Saturday," Perkins said.

"This year has been tough, the schedule has been pretty brutal on all of us, with so many races in close proximity and we haven't had a proper test day yet, so we've been learning on the run and that's affected me more than I thought it would. We made some big changes for Sunday in New Zealand and I'm confident we can join our FPR teammates at the pointy end of the field for the rest of the season, starting this weekend."

Meanwhile, Caruso - who comes off a season best fifth in the 200km dash in New Zealand -praised Western Australia ahead of the Perth 400 event.

"I love heading over to West Australia - it's a nice part of the world, always good weather and we always get lots of support from our fans," Caruso said.

"We only get to head over to that side of the country once a year and all the fans get right behind it, which is great for Nissan and the whole V8 Supercars category."

Norton Hornet teammate James Moffat impressed at the abrasive 2.42km circuit last year, and while teams have developed and gained more knowledge of their New Generation V8 Supercars than at this time last year, Caruso suggested the Nissan stable could gain some valuable tricks from 'Moff's' Perth approach.

"The speed we showed last year was reasonable and we think we can do better this time around, so we're looking forward to that," he said.

"James has an interesting driving style, which really seems to suit the circuit. So we'll definitely be looking over his performance from last year in terms of data and vision - and try to get the most out of that."

Tickets are available now for the Perth 400at Barbagallo Raceway - orcheck the TV Guide page here for airing times in your state.