In The Drivers' Seat

V8 Supercar Sponsorship Update

Over the last 4 years XXXX GOLD has been a proud sponsor of the V8 Supercars at great locations across Australia like Bathurst, Homebush and the Gold Coast.

We hope that you’ve enjoyed our involvement during this time as much as we’ve enjoyed interacting with V8 fans all over the country.

Perhaps you spent time soaking up the atmosphere at the XXXX GOLD Retreat? Or got the inside track on the competition from our Ambassador Drivers with their ‘In the Drivers Seat’ updates? And we’re pretty sure you’ll remember seeing the performances of the XXXX Angels as they brought their own, unique touch of the good life to the race days.

But unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.

We regularly review all of our sponsorship arrangements and we have decided not to renew our V8 sponsorship this year.

The V8 Supercars will continue to be a spectacular competition and we wish them and all of the fans the very best for the future.

This website will close down on Jan 31st 2012, but the XXXX GOLD Retreat and XXXX Angels will continue to tour - check out the website for more details.

XXXX GOLD has some exciting plans coming in 2012 so watch this space!

In the Driver’s Seat with… Murph

It’s a bit of a common theme this year, tough race weekends. The racing was really great at the Sydney Telstra 500 – exciting for the fans, which is always great. But we had a few dramas and didn’t have the speed of other cars, so we struggled along, as our qualifying efforts were pretty poor.

In Sunday’s race, we had to start at the back of the pack for causing a red flag in qualifying, but at least the weather played its part and, having started on slicks, we made up reasonable position in the race. But we were unable to maintain that strong position. We wanted to finish well in the final race of the season but couldn’t, which was disappointing.

Looking back, Bathurst was clearly the highlight of 2011; our best result of the season and the pole position to go with it. Now we need to have a bit of a break, come back and put our head down to come out firing in 2012 and enjoy a more consistent season.

We will be spending Christmas with the family in New Zealand, keeping the training up but still enjoying some relaxing times and have some fun times with the kids. But I’m definitely looking forward to coming back recharged for the 2012 season.

Having announced that I’ll be staying with Kelly Racing in 2012, along with Pepsi Max, we enjoy some continuity and consistency heading into the next 12 months, which is a huge bonus compared to where I’ve been at in the last couple of seasons.

We are very relaxed about that as it’s a welcome change. And as we have made progress with the team in 2011, I’m happy that we can build on that next season and grow on what we’ve been working on this season.

It’s been another great year with XXXX Gold. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed it as well.

Have a great festive season.

Cheers,

Murph.

In the Driver’s Seat with… Frosty

It was great to be able to fight back the way we did in the 2011 season. We would have been very happy with a race win at mid-season let alone climbing to third in the drivers’ championship. We turned our year around quite a bit and to win the Sunday race at the Sydney Telstra 500 was very special.

So to finish in the championship and to win two races at two of the toughest street circuits, we salvaged the season very well. Now we need to make sure we start next season like we have finished this one, as winning a championship is what we need to do.

I was so stoked with the weekend at Sydney. Any win you get is a great moment, but to do it in your hometown made it that much more special. It was so great to win in front of the family; I only wish Mum was there to see it as she would have loved for me to win that race with her here. But unfortunately she didn’t make it. My sister and her little girl saw me on the podium for the first time live, so that was pretty cool, along with our little Oliver, Renee and her parents. It was very special and a very proud moment for me.

Now we can enjoy some time off. We are off to America, going from one side of the country to the other – sightseeing tours and being tourists for the next three weeks, including Disneyland and all the theme parks.

I’m looking forward to turning the mobile off and enjoying some time away from the sport. It’s something we love and are passionate about, but it’s good to have a few weeks to refresh before getting back into it.

Also really looking forward to Oliver’s first Christmas. That part of the year is all about family and I’m really excited to enjoy a Christmas as a Dad, the first Christmas where it’s about the little one.

Then we get ready for next season starting in January, and I can’t wait for next season given how we finished this season.

Have a great festive season.

Cheers,

Frosty.

In the Driver’s Seat with… GT

We head into the final event of the year, the Sydney Telstra 500, with a bit still to play for. We can still finish third in the championship, so for us it’s important to make sure we have a strong weekend.

We’ve had some success there in previous years – we won the first ever race there – but last year wasn’t too kind to us. It’s a very, very tough race; really hard on the cars and physically as tough as Adelaide, so it’s not like we have a nice, easy and relaxing weekend to finish the year off; we have a big job to do.

It’s obviously a very busy week given the importance of the Sydney market to V8 Supercars, so they have us working pretty hard. It’s an important market and event for XXXX GOLD, too, so we do quite a bit of promotion heading into the event. I guess it’s the last chance for the sponsors to get their pound of flesh before we go into the break over Christmas… But we don’t mind it as it means the event is getting some traction in Sydney.

We have had a very up and down year in 2011. Right from the very first event of the year, where we were crashed out as a result of someone else’s accident, we started very low, but we had some success in Adelaide and then again at Townsville before winning the most important race of the year at Bathurst. There’s also been a lot going on in the team, which is well documented, so to finish the year off with third is probably the best we could do. Coupled with the Bathurst victory, it’s not so bad.

What Bathurst also did was reinforce that we are going in the right direction with the team. No one really gave us a chance prior to that race, so it was a very sweet victory. And you can have the worst year on record and win Bathurst and it’ll be a good year, so for all those reasons it was a really important win.

From halfway through the year and with the management change at the team, our focus switched to Bathurst and finishing strongly. We had given the Vodafone guys too much of a head start, so it was about winning the important events and focusing on next year. We have a lot going on with Steve Hallam coming on as CEO – a very important addition to the team. We’ll be one of the main contenders, as we always tend to be, but if we can start the season stronger then we’ll in with a shot.

The summer and start of the off-season will be busy for us as we are moving house the week after Sydney. That’ll take most of our time up heading into Christmas. Leanne and my families are coming in from interstate for Christmas then we have a week away after New Year before heading into pre-season training to hit the ground running in Adelaide in March.

Have a great off-season, all.

Cheers,

GT.

In the Driver’s Seat with… J-Dub

We had an unbelievably disappointing race at Bathurst, where we led for most of the race before hitting trouble, and we lost the championship points lead. But that’s the crazy thing about motorsport, two weeks later at Surfers Paradise we bounced back and grabbed the lead back heading into the final three events of the season.

It was great to have that sort of performance on the Gold Coast. I’m a Gold Coaster – the only XXXX GOLD ambassador who lives on the Gold Coast – so it’s a home event for me. And no matter what sport you play or what you do, you want to put in your best performance on home turf, so I was very thankful that I could do that this season.

My international co-driver, Sebastien Bourdais, did a great job. Part of the challenge for the teams is picking good co-drivers, and we felt like we had the two best guys of the lot. Bourdais won the Gold Coast Champ Car event a couple of times, so he was familiar with the circuit and had driven in the event the year before. He’s one of the best drivers in the world, having spent two years in Formula One, and he did a great job. And I was also able to learn a few new things from him.

Since Surfers I’ve had a chance to chill out with some water sports – a few days on the jet-ski and, excitingly, a few days on my brand new Malibu VLX called Candy, which is unbelievable. It’s got a bigger engine – up to 410 horsepower – and the stereo is bigger, so you can hear the tunes crystal clear even at full wakeboarding speeds at the back. Very much looking forward to some long summer days coming up soon, hopefully celebrating with some more silverware.

We head to Tassie this weekend to race at Symmons Plains, a nice little track that is the closest we get to a high-speed oval-type track given it’s such a short lap. It’s one of those events where there’s no driver that has gone consistently well there; every driver has had an up or down weekend there, mainly because it is such a short track and it tends to produce incidents. Even if you are fastest and start from pole, you’ll be racing lapped traffic for half the race anyway – that’s just the nature of the circuit. The variables add to the fun down.

As we’ve seen from the last two events, 143 points is nothing – things can turn around very quickly, so it will be an interesting end to the season.

Looking forward to the seeing everyone at the XXXX GOLD Retreat at Homebush in December – the best location for the Retreat – hopefully we can have a beer with the XXXX family after a successful season’s end.

Cheers,

J-Dub.

In the Driver’s Seat with… Frosty

We are very relieved to get a win in 2011. We’ve had a season that hasn’t been what we expected, so to get back into the winner’s circle at the Armor All Gold Coast 600 was great. And to do it on the soft tyres, having to pass Jamie Whincup, the most dominant driver this year, for the lead in a way he usually does to you – run you down, pass you and pull away – made it one of the sweetest wins that I’ve had in my career.

It was also special to do it at an enduro event with the international drivers on a street circuit that is one of the toughest on the calendar. I never realised how popular that event is until I won; seeing all the fans there, all the media coverage you get and the support from the Gold Coast community – a lot bigger than I thought it was. You always want to win on the bigger stages, when there are a lot of people there watching and supporting, which makes it a bit more special.

It was a difficult week leading into the event with the tragic accident at the IndyCar finale. I was set to have Will Power as a co-driver this year, who was very quick last year and is a bit of a local hero up in Queensland. But he was one of the cars that flew through the air in the huge crash and hurt his back in the accident. He pulled out, which was totally understandable, so we had to find an international driver on the Tuesday – the day before the test!

So we got on the phone to Richard Lyons, who was in Japan for meetings. He said yes, hopped on a plane and got there Tuesday afternoon. He was still not sure what was going at the test and then he was in the car all weekend. And he went home to Singapore with two new surfboards – not really sure what an Irishman living in Singapore would do with surfboards – pretty crazy week for him!

The surfboards are the most prestigious, unique trophies V8 Supercars gives out. They actually give you the fins so you can use it at the beach! So it’s legit with cool graphics on it. It’ll be a good story to tell people down the beach; where you got your board. I’ve been tempted to use it but I don’t want to wreck it. And Melbourne isn’t that beach friendly – if I lived on the Gold Coast, maybe. I’ve had a good run on the Gold Coast so I’m collecting a few. Hopefully we keep adding to it so the whole team can go surfing one day.

Having baby Oliver there for his first win was also very special. Although he can’t understand what’s going on, he seemed to really enjoy all the flashing lights, cameras and attention he was getting. People told me fatherhood would slow me down, so it was good to get that monkey off my back as a father.

Now our focus has to be continuing that Gold Coast form till the end of the season and trying to win as many races as possible, finishing up at Homebush, which is another big event like the Gold Coast.

Cheers,

Frosty.

In the Driver’s Seat with… Murph

I’ve had a really quiet, laidback week leading into Bathurst. The family and I went back to New Zealand, having some fun with mountain bikes and more – nice and relaxing before the season gets busy from Bathurst on.

We headed to Bathurst on Tuesday – reasonably early – and we’ve got a pretty easy lead in with not too many commitments. But it’s a case of waiting around and really wanting to hit the track on the Thursday. It’s the same feeling each time for most of the guys; the anxiety of really wanting to get out on track just builds and builds until we actually get out there, as it’s such a special place to drive around.

One of the highlights of the weekend, if you can get there, is the Shootout on the Saturday. You need a good day on the Thursday and obviously Friday to get in there, being comfortable in the car and being strong on new tyres. It’s going to be pretty hard this weekend – very competitive to sneak into the top ten. But it’s the best Shootout of the year, with the crowd and sole focus of that day.

I think it’s very important to be at the front end of the grid and stay out of trouble, even though it’s such a long race. Some guys tend to throw their brains out the window on the first lap of Bathurst, thinking they can win the race at the end of the first lap. Some still haven’t worked out that you need to settle into the race and be there at the finish. So being away from those guys is pretty important, as far as I’m concerned.

I think we are looking pretty good heading into Bathurst; we’ve been making some good progress. I think Bathurst is a unique challenge and different from most other tracks. Myself, my co-driver Allan Simonsen and the engineers are really amped. We can’t wait for it – and I’m definitely in a better position than I was in this time last year by far, so we are pretty confident.

Cheers,

Murph.

In the Driver’s Seat with… GT

The L&H 500 at Phillip Island went very well for us, apart from what happened at the start of the race! We had a pretty good qualifying and ended up on the front row in second place, despite some dramas in my qualifying race. But then we had an issue on the grid with the starter motor that forced us to start from pitlane.

That put us behind the eight ball. But the team did a great job with strategy to get us back up the front. However, we just didn’t have the speed at the end to compete for the win. We had a fresh set of tyres to go on the car, but the car didn’t work well with them at all. We probably had a dud set, which was disappointing because we got ourselves into the lead of the race and were looking forward to bringing it home strongly, but it didn’t go to script. But, all things considered, to go from the pitlane to fourth was not a bad result.

I was surprised we got up so high after the first round of pitstops. We decided to pit Nick (Percat) early and get him into clear air, which worked well. So we basically went from 23rd or so into the top five with Nick only having to pass one car on the track – all of it was done through strategy. So the team did a great job to use that window – and I’m surprised others teams didn’t see it coming and try and cover it.

Nick did exactly what we expected for him – far exceeded some of our expectations in certain areas, as well. There was a lot said going in that he perhaps didn’t have enough experience, wasn’t fast enough etc. But his performance at Phillip Island put a stop to all that.

We had faith in him; we’ve seen and know what he can do with all the data and statistics from his performances this year, and we’re happy with how he is going. Obviously, there was a lot of pressure on him. Other than making a small mistake in stalling on the grid, which wasn’t why we had to start from pitlane – the car wouldn’t start again – I thought he did an awesome job, so he’ll have a lot of confidence going to Bathurst.

Heading into Bathurst, our preparation doesn’t change too drastically. This year we have one less week than previous seasons because Phillip Island was one week later, so you don’t have a lot of time to prepare. We are just going through the motions, making sure the cars are all ready to hit the track. I’m doing my regular training – more about being fit for the Around the Bay in Melbourne on my push-bike the week after than Bathurst itself!

Bathurst is obviously the biggest race of the year and the one everyone wants to win. You can have a bad season all year but if you win Bathurst then it’s suddenly a good year. So we’re keen to get up there – podium last year, win the year before. Car speed is much better than this time last season, so we’re confident we can give it a good shake.

When I first won there I was only 23 – just behind Craig Lowndes as the youngest winner. And I probably didn’t appreciate it enough. It was the first time I had finished that race and I had won it. But it was only when I went back and tried to win it so many times again that I realised how hard it is and how special it is to win. Being fortunate to win it again, you appreciate and respect it more.

The build-up is always massive. We rock into the town on the Tuesday and there are already people there – making their annual pilgrimage. That’s pretty special when they give up their time to share that race with us – their passion and enthusiasm. Sunday morning is always the longest morning of the year as you wait for race start.

It’s a very special race to win and I’d love it to win it again this season, particularly winning at Nick’s first crack at the race.

Cheers,

GT.

In the Driver’s Seat with… J-Dub

I’ve been away flat-out for the last six weeks – hardly been at home – but I’ve had a lot of fun in that time. It all started in the Hunter Valley to do some promotion work with Craig (Lowndes). We both love our wine so it was great to check out the vineyards there. But the highlight of the break was the launch of the 2011 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 at Mount Perisher last week.

It all started at 5am that morning, where we found ourselves at the top of the mountain on a crystal clear, perfect day as the sun came up – which was pretty spectacular. It was actually a similar feeling to what you get Sunday morning at Bathurst, to be honest, when you’re up nice and early, breathing in the crisp air up on top of the mountain.

We launched the event with some great photos, clowned around and threw some snowballs at each other. A few of the boys had to leave straight after the official stuff but because it was Will Davo’s (Davison) birthday that day, we decided to stay on for two more days, and Paul Dumbrell joined us to do some snow boarding. It was a fantastic couple of days with just perfect conditions; jackets zipped halfway down with the sun out.

From there I headed down to Melbourne for Ken Block’s visit – an awesome event. I’d never seen so many toys in one area – dirt bikes, road bikes, drag cars, V8 Supercars and more. And obviously the highlight was seeing Block’s modified World Rally car on steroids! I would have loved a ride with him but I honoured my Holden contract and didn’t get in a Ford!

I’m looking forward to spending a few days at home this week, though, to try my new fishing rods. I got a Shimano rod – couldn’t find SRAM Red (cycling joke) – and looking forward to catching a few dinners from the river at the back of my house. Really hanging out to throw the rod in and see what I can drag out, while enjoying a couple of XXXX GOLDs.

As far as enduro preparations go, we are on track; making sure we are as prepared as well as we possibly can be to do a good job. I have a new co-driver this season in Andrew Thompson, who is doing a great job leading the Fujitsu Series, and it’s been good as we are good mates off track, so we haven’t had to do anything special to gel. We already spend a lot of time away from the track being clowns!

We are on track in terms of the championship. We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. We’ve had a great start to the season, but we are only at the start with lots of tough events still to come. We’ve given ourselves a good opportunity to be there at the end, but it’s only an opportunity and we need to be solid and on the ball.

We start the endurance events with Phillip Island this coming weekend, a circuit I rate as probably the best permanent circuit we’ve got here in Australia, assuming you classify Bathurst as a non-permanent road course. If we snag a good day there with nice weather and not too much wind, then it’s one of the best pieces of road in Australia, so looking forward to getting there.

Cheers,

J-Dub.

In the Driver’s Seat with Frosty

There haven’t been too many highlights from the track recently, sadly. We’ve struggled on the soft tyres, which has given us a real wake-up call on how to get on top of it. The Queensland Raceway event was the worst Ford Performance Racing has ever had. The soft tyres have proven to be a real issue for us, but the team has had a crisis meeting and we’ve all come up with ideas on how to address it.

That should hopefully help us as we head into the endurance events, but it’s not until the Surfers Paradise event that we go back on the softs, so we’ll have to wait and see. We are going to change the front-end geometry and pretty well redesign the whole car, so there are big plans in progress to address the issue. It’s been frustrating but it’s also been a big motivator.

Going back to the harder tyres for Phillip Island and Bathurst should really help us and we’ll be more competitive. Steven Richards will come on-board and he’ll be a big asset for the team. I’d love to win Bathurst with him because in 2007 we were leading the race when we crashed out with 20 laps to go, and that burns pretty deep for me. So there’s a lot of motivation there to finish the job and try and win it.

Last season we came second at Phillip Island, and if we can win there then that really sets you up as one of the form guys heading into Bathurst.

The season of enduros is the most enjoyable time of the season for me as you get to share the car with someone else; and you’ve got to trust that person as you spend a couple of months living out of each others pockets almost, so it’s an exciting time.

Winning Bathurst is the Holy Grail of our sport so I can’t imagine what it’d feel like to do it. There has been a number of hard luck stories up there and I’ve come close before, but each year you go there really craving that top spot on the podium; hoping you’ll be standing there one day.

I grew up watching Bathurst and I’d still be watching it every year if I weren’t in the sport. I grew up two hours from there, and we’d go up each year to watch the Shootout at the track on the Saturday, then drive home that night to watch the race all day on television on Sunday. I’ve watched the greats win there; the Moffats, Brocks, Johnsons Lowndes’ and more who have won it multiple times, and I just want to win it and join them. I don’t want to be like Glenn Seton, coming so close but never winning it.

I’ve always wanted to win the championship, with the pride of having the number one on the side of the door the following year, but when you have a year like we have had this year, you put all your eggs in the one basket to try and win Bathurst. Even if you’ve had a bad year, if you can win that race it doesn’t really matter what’s happened the rest of the year.

It means we can really go for it and not have to worry about risking a retirement; putting all our best bits on the car, and an engine upgrade, which we’ve got coming – having a real go if your in the hunt for the race win with 10 laps to go, not having to worry about points.

I’m stepping up my training for the enduros now and really putting everything into it, so bring it on!

Cheers,

Frosty.