Lowndes 'Betta' as Triple Eight wins two straight.

By Matthew Agius

Triple Eight Race Engineering Australia leads the V8 Supercar Championship Series on adjusted points after star driver Craig Lowndes won his second successive round for 2006 at Hidden Valley Raceway.

Driving the #888 Team Betta Electrical Falcon, Lowndes recorded his inaugural win at the Northern Territory circuit in his tenth year of full time V8 Supercar competition. He won the final race of the weekend as was the most consistent frontrunner of the weekend - proving virtuous to his eventual outright victory.

"I was pretty happy to be called in to pit early as the tyres we had on at the start did not have any grip," said Lowndes.

"After my pitstop the car had great drive and felt very balanced giving me every confidence it could go the distance. As a total package the car is brilliant and I congratulate Campbell and the other engineers on their consistency and preparation.

"Our focus is now to improve on qualifying speed ahead of our home race at Queensland Raceway in three weeks time."

The three-time V8 Supercar Champion was the class package of the weekend, and is now favourite to take a hat trick of victories when the category ventures to his team's home test track at Queensland Raceway in three weeks time.

However whilst Lowndes enjoyed another fortuitous weekend, his teammate Jamie Whincup's was better likened to a roller coaster. A strong performance in race two's reverse-grid format was ruined when a string of incidents in race three hampered a potentially good points haul. Whincup finished eleventh overall, and now sits ninth in the championship on both adjusted and full tallies.

"I had a great pit stop and was settling into the race when I locked the front brakes coming into Turn 1 and ran off track," said Whincup.

"As a result I flat spotted the tyre causing me to lose a couple more spots and creating the puncture I encountered later in the race. It was very disappointing especially as I had excellent race speed.

"I am yet to string three good races together in this sprint format that reflects the amount of effort both myself and the team are putting in."

Both Lowndes and Whincup will compete at the forthcoming Queensland Raceway Bigpond 400 sprint event.