Well I am writing to you from the plane on my way to sunny Darwin for round 6 of the championship. Coming off a round win at Sandown and heading into an event that my teammate has won the last 2 years gives me great confidence.

I love the Darwin round, it is always a very relaxed atmosphere. Everyday the Hidden Valley track is packed with race fans all there for one reason, to have a good time.

I have had a busy few weeks moving into my new rental property. After months of trying to find a new house to buy, I have decided to rent for another 6 months with a mate or two and focus on my racing. It was taking up too much of my time and the way the property market is at the moment, taking it easy for 6 month may not be a bad thing. So I am settled in now which is fantastic. I have my own garage again!

I am actually finding its quite a tense time of year for a lot of people. I picked up the paper last Sunday to see the headline “Dancing boy, we don’t rate you”. Then I pick up the latest V8X magazine today to see “Lowndes, dirty driver”. What’s going on, we have blokes out there doing the best they can and in most cases doing very well in a highly competitive sport, only to be slammed by the press. Maybe some of this sort of thing has been self-fed but is it really necessary? My Mum always told me that if you have nothing good to say, don’t say anything at all. Are we running out of good things to talk about?

Anyway enough of that, lets talk about the good stuff. This weekend we are running a very different livery on the cars. The bright Vodafone ‘Rocket Red’ has been replaced by the earthy tones of the Red Dust artistry to raise awareness for need to support indigenous youth. So we get into Darwin at 1am Wednesday morning, then need to be back at the airport at 8am. We will take a short flight down to Daly River to launch the new livery at one of the many indigenous communities throughout the Northern Territory.

The other big factor this weekend is for the first time in a long time, the slick Dunlop tyre we all use is changing slightly. This is due to the fact that all new tyres have to run a more synthetic based oil in the rubber as opposed to mineral based which we currently use. Sounds all a bit technical to me.All I know is that I was lucky enough to be the test pilot at Philip Island on the Tuesday after last years Grand Finale. That’s right, I was the one that had to stay off the drinks at the awards night and try to get to bed as early as possible. But that means I have already driven on the new tyre and from what we found it is about 5-tenths quicker than the old tyre. Expect to see some lap records being beaten from here on in. Can we go under 2:06.8 at Bathurst? I hope so.

Make sure you keep an eye out for my video session updates everyday over the weekend.

Cheers,

Jamie