Lowndes takes race 2

Lowndes virtually repeated Greg Murphy's efforts from the day before as he took a near lights-to-flag win to take his first victory on the narrow Australian street circuit. Murphy finished second ahead of Mark Skaife, who made it two third places in two races.

Russell Ingall took fourth for the second consecutive race to increase his points lead. His closest challenger Marcos Ambrose struggled with a broken rear wing after a spin while fighting down the field to finish in 27th.

Todd Kelly did however make a good recovery after his problems yesterday and finished 14th. Another rear-of-grid starter, Steven Richards, looked set for a top ten finish until he collided with David Besnard with three laps remaining, Richards dropping to seventeenth and could yet face a penalty for the incident.

The start of the race saw good starts for Lowndes and Ingall as they leapt their row-mates to move into the lead and third respectively, with Murphy and Skaife in second and fourth.

And from there it was plain sailing for the leaders, the only change up front occurring when Skaife moved ahead of Ingall during the compulsory pit stops mid-race.

Lap 17 did however see the retirement of Jason Richards from seventh place, after he clouted the tyre wall towards the end of the lap, the car too damaged to complete the race.

And so Lowndes took his first Surfers win to reverse the order of the top two placing from Saturday, while Skaife and Ingall were next to make it the same top four finishers (in a slightly different order) in both races so far this weekend.

Result of race two:

Pos  Driver              Car
 1.  Craig Lowndes       Ford Falcon BA
 2.  Greg Murphy         Holden Commodore VZ
 3.  Mark Skaife         Holden Commodore VZ
 4.  Russell Ingall      Ford Falcon BA
 5.  Garth Tander        Holden Commodore VZ
 6.  Rick Kelly          Holden Commodore VZ
 7.  Cameron McConville  Holden Commodore VZ
 8.  Steve Ellery        Ford Falcon BA
 9.  Jamie Whincup       Holden Commodore VZ
10.  Jason Bright        Ford Falcon BA
11.  Steven Johnson      Ford Falcon BA
12.  Craig Baird         Ford Falcon BA
13.  Paul Radisich       Holden Commodore VZ
14.  Todd Kelly          Holden Commodore VZ
15.  John Bowe           Ford Falcon BA
16.  Brad Jones          Ford Falcon BA
17.  Steven Richards     Holden Commodore VY
18.  Dean Canto          Holden Commodore VZ
19.  Paul Dumbrell       Holden Commodore VY
20.  Jason Bargwanna     Ford Falcon BA
21.  Greg Ritter         Ford Falcon BA
22.  Paul Morris         Holden Commodore VZ
23.  Paul Weel           Holden Commodore VZ
24.  Glenn Seton         Ford Falcon BA
25.  Alex Davison        Holden Commodore VZ
26.  Max Wilson          Holden Commodore VZ
27.  Marcos Ambrose      Ford Falcon BA
28.  Matthew White       Ford Falcon BA
29.  Mark Winterbottom   Ford Falcon BA
30.  David Besnard       Ford Falcon BA
DNF  Jason Richards      Holden Commodore VZ
DNF  Anthony Tratt       Holden Commodore VY