BLUE GRIT

As one of just two remaining teams on the receiving end of Ford sponsorship funds, Ford Performance Racing knows it must deliver – and that makes its 2009 season collapse all the harder to bear…

Nothing demonstrates the relentless competitiveness and razor-edge precision of V8 Supercar competition more than the current plight of Ford Performance Racing.

Twelve months ago the team was at the top of the heap, with Mark Winterbottom looking like a short-priced favourite for the driver’s title and the team’s title looking likely, too.

Right now, though, the team has given up.

Both championships are well and truly out of reach and its performance at Sandown was serious cause for concern.

But just because it’s given up on the championships that doesn’t mean the team has stopped fighting. The way team boss Tim Edwards sees it, the fight for the 2010 championship has already begun…

SHOOTING STARS

Two newcomers to V8 Supercars, Michael Caruso and Alex Davison, are ruffling plenty of feathers…

A new face on the V8 Supercar podium is a rare event, but two faces? That’s exactly what happened at Darwin this year, when Michael Caruso narrowly beat Alex Davison for the win in race 10 of the championship.

The last time the podium had an influx like that was the 2005 Sandown 500, when Yvan Muller shared the win with Craig Lowndes and Jason Richards and Jamie Whincup finished third for Tasman.

Of course, that was before soft tyres and mandatory pit stops in sprint races had become part of the championship regulations. Whatever your view of these artificial excitement generators, it’s certainly shaken up the look of the rostrum.

"It feels like it’s been months and months now," says Caruso, buried deep in a GRM race jacket, much of his head covered by a beanie...

CODE RED

With TeamVodafone and Walkinshaw Racing now both fighting under the red lion standard, sparks are set to fly like never before…

A bitter and spiteful civil war is brewing as two of the biggest owners in V8 Supercars prepare to go toe to toe in Holden colours.

With TeamVodafone’s dogmatic decision to swap sides to Holden, the battle lines between team principal Roland Dane and the patriarch of the Holden Racing Team, Tom Walkinshaw, are now drawn in blood.

This promises to be a confrontation to end all confrontations that will make the war in the 1990s between HRT and no-frills former racer and team owner Larry Perkins look like the Mad Hatter’s tea party…

V8X READER SURVEY: The fans have Spoken!

We asked and you answered. This year’s XXXX Gold Ultimate Fan Survey offers a great insight into just what V8 fans are thinking

V8 Supercar fanatics in their hundreds have gone online to tell us how they feel about our sport in the second V8X survey, this time hosted at the XXXX Gold website.

And in what must be a major surprise for long time supporters of the sport, who remember seeing a sea of red at racetracks around the country for decades, the Blue Oval has trumped arch rival Holden in the popularity stakes.

45.8 per cent of respondents declared their allegiance for Ford compared with 43.9 per cent for Holden, the remainder saying they...

BATHURST 09

In the style that only V8X can deliver, our Bathurst Preview has it all including Mark Larkham’s insight into who has a realistic chance of taking the big one and which front runners are pretenders.

Pressure. That’s what October brings. A high-pressure system centred right on the Mount Panorama road course at Bathurst.

Everyone feels it one way or another; the drivers, the pit crews, the punters. It’s five days and 1000km out of your life where hours can pass in moments and moments in hours.

A locked brake, a fumbled tyre change, an inspired pass, a brilliant strategy decision, a cruel accident, a crucial safety-car...