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Whincup takes comfortable win

Team Vodafone's Jamie Whincup put in another strong performance to win the first race of the SkyCity Triple Crown at Hidden Valley Raceway

Whincup grabbed the lead at the start and withstood pressure from Holden Racing Team's Garth Tander early in the race, before opening a gap as the leaders made their pit stops, winning by nearly fifteen seconds as drivers close to him in the early laps had dramas in the second half of the race.

Second was Ford Performance's Mark Winterbottom, just over a second ahead of Will Davison who moved up well from ninth on the grid, just holding off team-mate Garth Tander who had a slow pitstop and dropped down to fourth.

All alone in fifth was Jack Daniel's Racing's Todd Kelly, while three seconds behind him was Craig Lowndes in sixth, leading a group of five cars covered by just over 1.5 seconds.

Right behind Lowndes was pole man Jason Richards, who benefitted from Tander's slower stop to move up to second only to have an issue at the end of the straight with three laps remaining, running off circuit and falling to fifth, losing another two places in the closing laps.

That the race ran to time, running 34 laps instead of 35, may have saved him another place or two, Richards crossing the line with James Courtney alongside him, team-mate Cameron McConville a tenth of a second behind and Lee Holdsworth less than a second away.

There were few surprises outside the top ten, although Alex Davison moved up well from his starting position of 30th to finish in 19th position.

Pos  Driver                Make                  Time
 1.  Jamie Whincup         Ford Falcon FG        41:09.7792
 2.  Mark Winterbottom     Ford Falcon FG        +  14.1993
 3.  Will Davison          Holden Commodore VE   +  15.4941
 4.  Garth Tander          Holden Commodore VE   +  15.9593
 5.  Todd Kelly            Holden Commodore VE   +  19.6272
 6.  Craig Lowndes         Ford Falcon FG        +  22.2483
 7.  Jason Richards        Holden Commodore VE   +  22.9635
 8.  James Courtney        Ford Falcon FG        +  22.9733
 9.  Cameron McConville    Holden Commodore VE   +  23.0812
10.  Lee Holdsworth        Holden Commodore VE   +  23.8488
11.  Michael Caruso        Holden Commodore VE   +  32.6498
12.  Fabian Coulthard      Ford Falcon FG        +  33.2991
13.  Russell Ingall        Holden Commodore VE   +  36.8205
14.  Paul Dumbrell         Holden Commodore VE   +  45.0479
15.  Rick Kelly            Holden Commodore VE   +  48.9754
16.  Jason Bright          Ford Falcon BF        +  49.9199
17.  Steven Johnson        Ford Falcon FG        +  56.6837
18.  David Reynolds        Holden Commodore VE   +1:00.1487
19.  Alex Davison          Ford Falcon FG        +1:00.6634
20.  Shane Van Gisbergen   Ford Falcon FG        +1:01.1024
21.  Steven Richards       Ford Falcon FG        +1:01.6174
22.  Jason Bargwanna       Holden Commodore VE   +1:03.5236
23.  Greg Murphy           Holden Commodore VE   +1:06.9029
24.  Michael Patrizi       Ford Falcon BF        +    1 lap
25.  Dale Wood             Holden Commodore VE   +    1 lap
26.  Tony D'Alberto        Holden Commodore VE   +    1 lap
27.  Tim Slade             Holden Commodore VE   +    1 lap
28.  Marcus Marshall       Ford Falcon BF        +    1 lap
29.  Dean Fiore            Holden Commodore VE   +    1 lap

Not classified/retirements:

     Driver                Make                  Laps
     Jack Perkins          Holden Commodore VE     0

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