Bathurst was a mixture of good things and some frustrations for me.

It was a fantastic feeling for both David Besnard and I to finish third
in the JELD-WEN Ford Falcon, and make the podium.

This was my third successive podium result at Bathurst with Stone
Brothers Racing, after previously finishing third with Glenn Seton in
2006 and second with David in 2007.

My opening stint in the race could not have gone any better. I took the
lead on lap four and opened up a 10-second advantage by the time I made
my first pit-stop on lap 28. The car felt great to drive.

Another positive aspect of the race was setting the fastest lap with a
time of 2-minutes 09.277-seconds. I did that time on lap 139 which
showed the car still had good speed in my final stint.

The frustrating part of the event was the tyre problems we had in
David's first stint, which dropped us down the field.

This was disappointing because I felt we had the pace to run with the
race-winning Triple Eight Falcon driven by Craig Lowndes and Jamie
Whincup.

Our tyre problems were caused by the kerb falling apart on the exit of
Turn Two at the end of Mountain Straight. A tyre started deflating which
made it tough for David.

Initially the team thought the problem may have been a broken sway bar.
Some changes were made to the set-up to compensate, which made the car
more difficult to drive compared to my opening stint.

Once we realised the original problem had been caused by a deflating
tyre the car was changed back to the original set-up, and it was much
better for the remainder of the race.

While we were sorting out these problems Lowndes and Whincup, plus the
other leading cars, headed off into the distance and mid-race I didn't
think we had any chance of making the podium.

However, some Safety Car periods in the second half of the race allowed
us to close the gap. I was 13th after my final pit-stop, and was able to
close the gap on the leading group.

In the final few laps I passed Max Wilson's WOW Holden Commodore and
Steven Richards in the Ford Performance Racing Falcon to finish third.

Assessing the full 161 laps, I felt that with an incident-free race we
might have been able to challenge for the win, but considering
everything that happened then third was a good result.

After the race I had a quiet night. I went back to the house at Bathurst
where I was staying with my wife Carys, and David and his partner. We
had a pizza and a few drinks.

The next day I made a couple of JELD-WEN sponsorship appearances, the
first at Oberon near Bathurst, and the other at Windsor in Sydney.

Carys and I are staying in Sydney for a few days where both our parents
live. This weekend I will be at the Sydney Motor Show, making a
sponsorship appearance for Navman.

One of the more interesting promotional things I did at Bathurst was
take part in a Channel 7 'air guitar' competition, along with Will
Davison and Jason Richards. This was shown on the telecast during race
weekend, with viewers voting who they thought did the best job.

It was a lot of fun. I based my 'style' on a friend of mine who plays
guitar in a Gold Coast band called Blend 11 - he's also my helmet
painter.

Finishing third at Bathurst was worth 258 championship points and it
moved me up from eighth to seventh in the series with an overall tally
of 1,802.

With four rounds remaining it looks like the favourites for the
championship title are the top three in the points - Whincup, who leads
on 2,316, Mark Winterbottom on 2,283, and Garth Tander on 2,234. They
have opened up a gap on the rest of us.

However, I'm in the next group of five drivers from fourth position back
to eighth and we are all close in the points. Lowndes is fourth on
1,923, followed by Will Davison on 1,865, Richards on 1,834, myself on
1,802, and Rick Kelly on 1,792.

No doubt there will be plenty of exciting racing between all of us in
the closing four rounds at the Gold Coast, Bahrain, Tasmania, and Oran
Park.

I've got to thank David (Besnard) for his efforts in the endurance races
at Phillip Island, where we finished sixth, and Bathurst. He never made
a mistake and helped me score 459 championship points from the two
races. I'm surprised he doesn't have a fulltime drive in the series.

Our next championship event is a sprint round with three races at the
Nikon Gold Coast Indy from October 23-26.

This is always a great weekend for motorsport fans with the V8 Supercars
joined by the Indy cars from the United States, and the full-on party
atmosphere around the track.

Qualifying will be very important for the V8 Supercar races because
there aren't many places to pass other cars on the Surfers Paradise
street circuit.

I qualified second at Indy in 2007 so hopefully I can get a front-row
starting position again.

During Indy week Marino Franchitti will be visiting from America and
staying with Carys and I. He was best man at our wedding and is a
brother of Indy car driver Dario Franchitti.

For those of you who want to stock up on JC merchandise for Indy, the
various items can be purchased elsewhere on my website
(www.jamescourtney.com.au) and on the SBR website
(www.stonebrothersracing.com.au)

Some merchandise was recently discounted, including men's and women's
cool-dry mesh sports t-shirts. These were previously $60 each and are
now on sale for $40 each.

These garments and the various other items make great Christmas or
birthday presents.

Keep smiling.

JC