Sandown Preview

14 September 2007

Hello everyone,

Usually my 88upd8 comes out Wednesday before each race meeting, but with all the action in the last 24 hours I decided to hang this edition out till now.

Since Oran Park I’ve been training hard as usual and to compliment this, I slipped up to the Gold Coast Hinterland for two big days on my dirt bike. After the recent wet weather in Queensland I enjoyed being able to ride in perfect conditions - no dust and clear trails - It was awesome!

What was disappointing for me was that before Thursday morning I could not have been happier with my training and preparation but I woke up at 4am suffering from a bad case of food poisoning. Luckily it was only a 24 hour bug and I am now much better today. I think channel 7 were struggling for news and reported on Sunrise this morning that I was in doubt for competing this weekend but rest assure that was never the case.

I’m sure you guys would have heard that this weekend is going to be a pretty exciting event for me. For this event I have been classified by the team as equal lead driver with my well regarded team mate Craig Lowndes. We will be driving the chassis that I have raced all year although, instead of being number 88, it will run with the number 888. It is important to note that while the number has changed, it is still my car, crew and my race engineer Mark Dutton. Mark has really stepped up to the plate this year and is doing a great job; we have a great Driver/Engineer relationship which is an essential ingredient for on track success. With that in mind, maybe we should have renamed this rounds message as the 888upd8!!

I am looking forward to staying in my car at Sandown and overall we have all have all the same ingredients and more to build upon the results achieved last year and I think we are going to be a strong combination for Sandown and Bathurst. As always, the weather will be a huge factor this weekend but I am confident we have the machinery to do the job in the wet and the dry. We had fast cars in the sunshine at Queensland Raceway where I managed to put the car on pole and we continued to be quick in the monsoon conditions at Oran Park in Sydney. As I am writing this at the track, we have just had a large down poor of rain, now the suns back out. Yes this is Melbourne as I remember it.

I am currently third overall in the championship standing and the next two race meetings will be crucial for me to achieve a strong result at the end of the 2007 V8 Supercar Series. I can confidently say that my plan for the championship is currently on track but, having said that, anything can happen and I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.

Cheers,
Jamie Whincup