Well, that was one heck of a race! Damn close, an insane amount of crashes and safety cars, nice mix of veterans and young'uns up the top.

Highlights:

1. Lowndes & Whincup. Lowndes now has a 101 point lead in the series so he's within reach of the title now. After years of crappy teams after being ditched by Holden for Bright, good to see him back where he belongs - at the top. Whincup - this guy can drive. He's consistent, good mix of aggression and control. Whoever found this guy and got him in the same team as Lowndes is a genius. Whincup will hopefully win a series in the next 5 years.
2. Close race all the way - no clear shot winner, lotta lead changes and pit shuffles and the like. Final safety car ensured a tight finish. Made for good watching.
3. Brother combo is a good one - hard not to like the Kelly brothers. Even though they race in different teams they're still good mates. Seeing them compete together for once and get 2 second places in the endurances was brilliant.
4. GG to my 2 least favourite drivers - Skaife and Bright. Skaife only lasted about 30 seconds, he just sucks at endurances now. Bright, never liked him since he is clearly not as good as Lowndes and took his spot which was wasted. He can drive, but not as consistently as he should. Another early casualty.
5. Ford breaks the drought. First Bathurst win since 1998. I take no facotry sides in V8s, I just follow the drivers. But good to see their Bathurst drought over.

Lowlights:

1. The Radisich crash. That one was not good to watch. Hit the wall damn hard at high speed. Lucky he didn't get seriously hurt. Nathan Pretty has a bit of explaining to do.
2. The number of safety cars - 10! It took until about 40 laps to go for clean racing to finally get going. The number of worn tires, weird spins or sudden control loss was mind-boggling. The middle part of the race was just one safety car after another.
3. Jason Richards near miss - Lucky as hell there was no car near him when he went airborne at close to 300 kilometres. That would have been catastrophic.
4. The oil. How many cars lost it on Caltex Chase thanks to the oil leak from Steven Richards? That place was a war zone mid-race.

I'd say that the lowest of the lowlights, even though it only has the slightest connection to the actual race itself, was the death of Mark Porter, who had competed in the 1000 itself in the past. You knew there were real problems, after his accident in the V8 Development race with David Clark and Chris Alajiajan, when the cameras stopped showing what the marshalls and medical personnel were doing to help Porter and Clark. Which is exactly what happened at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola after Ayrton Senna hit the wall at the Tamburello Bend.

After that, seeing Radisich's crash was sickening. I really thought he was a goner when the cameras went elsewhere soon after that one.

Highlights

1. Watching 6 boys battle over ford vs holden
2. Drinking their beer
3. Having it on a projector covering most of the wall
4. BBQ Ribs (need I say more)
5. Did I mention the beer?

Lowlights
1. it was all about cars

Yeah Mark porter passing has really cast a shadow over the event.