"Since I joined Larry's (Perkins) Team we have been so close to a result like today but just fallen short on numerous occasions," Richards said.
It looked being repeat with Richards qualifying third in the top ten shootout and then being unable to match the early pace of the leading trio of Ambrose, Skaife and Lowndes in race one. Then Lowndes ran off the track at turn one and Richards inherited third spot.
Lowndes filled the cooling ducts of his 888 racing Falcon with sand from the catch trap. When he returned to the track Lowndes made some violent manoeuvres that shook the sand free and deposited it on the racing line. The next car along was Marcos Ambrose's Pirtek Falcon and he slid wide on Lownde's sand, at the same time Ambrose cleared enough sand off the racing line to allow the following Skaife to stay on line and take the lead. "I was going flat out with a river of sand across the track," Ambrose said. "The first bloke to cross it was always going to be the unlucky one and that was me. I saw it all there, I was winning the race, and I just couldn't do anything about it."
Richards then had a ringside seat to the carnage in turn one again at the start of race two. Skaife made a bad start and Ambrose took the lead heading into the turn. Skaife attempted to overcome his bad start by forcing his way down the inside of Ambrose and the pair clashed sending both into that sand trap again. "The day he (Marcos Ambrose) thinks I'm ever going to quit driving into the first corner and he can drive across and force me off the road, he's kidding himself, " said Skaife. "Even if you have 1mm of overlap, you can't crowd a bloke. " The stewards controversially decide that Ambrose was to blame for the incident and gave him a drive through penalty, and docked him 25 championship points.
This left the track clear for Richards who held off the professional bridesmaid in Russell Ingall in the Caltex Falcon. This put Richards into a strong position for the final race and he held the lead until the compulsory pitstops. The Stone Brothers crew worked their magic "I had an amazing 4.1-second stop today which really gave me the spot in front of Richo (Richards) and eventually the race win, " said Ingall. Richards seemed content to settle for second place and secure that important round win. Ambrose hd worked hi sway back through the pack after the race two incidensts. A safety car period while an overturned was removed from a catch trap allowed Ambrose to close onto Richards Castrol Commodore's rear bumper. From the restart Richards had the pace when it really mattered and pulled away from the Pirtek Falcon. There are no prizes for guessing whose car was sitting on its roof. Obviously it was the Brad Jones BOC Flacon, once again. At on stage the crew painted some "this way up" arrows on it after one of its previous mishaps. They should have left them on.
