Asian Motor Sports

Jack Daniels Racing’s Steven Richards split the Holden Racing Team down the middle to win the second of three non-Championship races at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on Saturday.

Richards’ guile saw him take the win in a spectacular race that had five cars, at one stage almost side by side, battling all out for the honours. An audacious move on the 13th of 19 laps during the five-car tussle set up Richards’ win.

He made the most of an equally bold move by Craig Lowndes on HRT’s Mark Skaife, the then leader, to slip through to second, taking his team-mate Paul Dumbrell with him.

“I was just there in the right place at the right time,” Richards said.

“There was so much happening I can’t remember exactly what went on, it was pretty full on at that stage with cars going absolutely everywhere. It was great racing and just what everybody wants to see.”

Soon after Richards got around Skaife whose car, a machine on loan from the Holden Special Vehicles outfit, ran out of grunt in the race for home.

Skaife held in for second while his team-mate Todd Kelly inched out Lowndes on the line.

Skaife had led from the start from Kelly before Lowndes made a move on the second HRT car taking Dumbrell, Richards and Cameron McConville with them.

Lowndes then put enormous pressure on Skaife and for several laps spent inches away from his former team-mates rear bumper.

That pressure and ultimately an attempted passing move by Lowndes led to the Richards pass that set up the finish.

“Craig drove really well, he was just a little unlucky there and probably deserved to be on the podium,” Skaife said.

For Richards it was a well earned win with his piece of opportunism that he rightfully said was exactly that - but it paid handsome dividends.

“It doesn’t matter where you go or where you are racing in this category it’s just so hard to get a win because of the strength of the competition,” he said.

“You have moments like those out there today and I’ve had my fair share of times like that when it has gone the other way. You make the most of opportunities when they come along and it’s great when they pay off like that.

“In that case everybody was giving each other plenty of room which made it such great racing. I knew I was going to get one of them (Skaife or Lowndes) at some stage but I didn’t think it was going to be both of them.”

Kelly staged a great comeback from being shunted back to sixth by turning pressure on Lowndes in the closing lap in a great last corner move and sprint to the line to edge out his Ford rival by less than half a second for third place.

“That was awesome on the line there. I didn’t even know whether I had got him or not,” Kelly said, adding that the racing was fierce throughout.

“What a hell of a race, the thing came back with hardly a mark on it. I just took my time and made sure I brought the car home. It was a very enjoyable race.

“There were four or five times there where I got myself into positions when I could have easily been bringing the car back on a tow truck.”

Some did exactly that. Rick Kelly and Lee Holdsworth suffered from first lap incident when both cars ended up with severe damage.

It was unclear at the time what happened although it appeared Jason Richards was also involved. Holdsworth shunted into the back of Kelly who also suffered severe front end damage.