Asian Motor Sports

The Ford of Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup won an incident-packed Bathurst 1000 at the Mt Panorama circuit on Sunday.

Lowndes won the race less than a second ahead of Holden’s Rick Kelly, while James Courtney edged out Stone Brothers Racing teammate Russell Ingall for third.

The win is Ford’s first at Bathurst since 1998.

Last year’s winner Mark Skaife crashed out of the Great Race before completing a single lap, while the season for Team Kiwi Racing may have come to a premature end after their car was destroyed in a high speed accident.

The sole New Zealand team in the V8 Supercar Championship had worked their way through the field to challenge the top-10 until Paul Radisich suffered a heavy crash on lap 72 of the 161-lap race.

He was attempting to avoid the second Supercheap Auto car of Paul Weel that had run wide, forcing Radisich into the dirt after the Chase at the fastest part of the circuit. Radisich had no way of slowing the car as it crashed heavily into the tyre wall at 200kph and finished on its side.

The car was destroyed with officials forced to cut the roll cage to extricate Radisich, who was taken to hospital as a precautionary move after suffering bruising from his safety harness and complaining of a sore back.

“He is otherwise fine and was conversing with us,” said Team Kiwi Racing owner David John. “It was unavoidable really and Paul had no choice.

“It was such a shame because we were going very strongly. Paul was really upbeat today and felt we had a very good race package. I am sure we were looking at a top-10 finish.”

However the news is not so good for the rest of their season.

“We are a one-car team and this car has been totally destroyed by the accident and in cutting the roll cage to get Paul out. There’s not much we can salvage.

“The team are devastated really. We’ve put so much in and were going so well. And now for something that was not our fault, it could mean the end of the season. Frankly I can’t see us being able to do a lot with the resources in hand.”