It was a sunny Sunday morning at the Surfer’s Paradise street circuit, site of Sunday’s big Armor All Gold Coast 600 V8 Supercars Championship race. Saturday’s race was Round 21, and Sunday’s race is Round 22.
The Team Lowndes folks are out in droves handing our packets (sachets) of sunscreen, and it is a good idea.
Sunday’s race is the one being televised live in the US on SPEED TV Saturday night 11pm ET/8PT.
I’ve found at least two female team members who work on the race cars. They don’t think of themselves as female crew members, but as just one of the team
JANELLE NAVARO has been working in motorsports for the past four years. This year she’s the No.2 on The Bottle-O Racing Team No.55 Ford. In garage parlance, that is high up in the pecking order. I’m told she’s quite good, and is a faster tire changer than some of the lads. Her drivers are PAUL DUMBRELL, who is retiring at the end of this V8 season, and CHRISTIAN KLIEN of Austria.
JESSE NOORT has been working for the past six months on the Fair Dinkum Sheds No.21 Holden, raced by KARL REINDLER and FABRIZIO GIOVANARDI of Italy. Noort, seen here checking tires, works on the sub-assemblies and gearboxes.
Saturday night the V8 garages were mostly open, with the crews beavering away. Only two cars seemed to have it done at 8pm – Mother Energy Racing Team whose No.19 Ford was locked up tight behind closed doors (drivers JONATHON WEBB and GIL de FERRAN of Brazil); and the No.6 Orrcon Steel Ford raced by WILL DAVISON and MIKA SALO of Finland was nestled under a snug car cover.
Everywhere else there was lots of work going on. 
Other work going on Saturday night centered on cleaning up and repairing the circuit before Sunday’s races. I saw at least two different kerb areas being reworked. The painted kerbs had lost more of their color scheme, which was peeling off in chunks. That had to be repaired, and it looked like a long, tedious job on the part of the workmen, some of whom didn’t quite seem to know how to attack the task. I looked for but didn’t see any Bollards.
It’s not just the V8’s who abuse the course. There are all the support races, such as Formula Fords, Porsche Carrera Cup, Touring Car Masters, and V8 Utes. And don’t forget the Formula One Minardi making many thrill-seeking exhibition laps. Because of the wide variety of vehicles on the course, it’s not easy trying to find ways to monitor the short-cutting and kerb hopping. What works for one series may be wrong for another.