Ellery Bathurst race report

Steve Ellery plans to put his feet up this evening, confident he's moving up the Shell Series championship table, after scoring 7th with Geoff Brabham in the V8 Supercar 1000 today.

Ellery and Brabham had a pretty trouble free run and ran at the pointy end of the field all day, with only a few minor bumps upsetting a perfect run by the Super Cheap Auto Team.

Ellery set an early lap record and his 7th position continues his perfect finishing record in the championship, moving him up the order to 9th on 1810 points, just 25 behind Tander.

Ellery, while he's pleased with his points gain, is disappointed not to have scored a spot on the podium in a car that was more than up to the job.

"I guess its inspiring for our next few rounds, but I'm disappointed not to be standing on the podium tonight. We made a couple of wrong calls with tyre choice, lost a few spots on track and at the end of the day that hurt us.

"On the other side of the coin, it's a relief to get to the end of a race that this year was extremely tough and claimed half the field. The changeable weather conditions are par for course here but it doesn't make doing the job on track any easier," Ellery said.

Ellery drove through a number of on-track incidents and came out virtually unscathed.

The Queenslander is surprised that those who qualified well didn't necessarily finish up the front of the field.

"The most surprising thing about this weekend is that qualifying didn't play a huge part in the outcome of the race," Ellery explained, "you just need to look at the runners up."

Geoff Brabham, who is a former winner around Mount Panorama, said that even though they didn't win here today that the result is still an achievement for the team.

He had his own scare coming into the pits for his final stop when Russell Ingall spun coming into pit lane, almost taking out Brabham as he drove onto the road.

"We were lucky a couple of times today and Steve and the team did a great job in the circumstances," Brabham said.

"I guess Steve would be a little disappointed not to be further up the field, as I am, but they still did great job to make it all the way, which a lot of others didn't."

Ellery and team are looking forward to the V8 Supercar race at Indy where Steve held pole position in 1999 and has had a good run in the past. He hopes to continue his perfect finishing record, held only by five other SCS drivers in the championship. <pre>

V8 SUPERCAR 1000 FINAL RESULTS 1.Skaife/Longhurst Holden 6:50.33.17 2.Jones/Cleland Ford 6:50.35.4574 3.Kelly/Murphy Holden 6:50.51.1231 4.McLean/Ritter Ford 6:50.59.2931 5.Richards/Canto Ford 6:51.03.9623 6.Tander/bargawanna Holden 6:51.07.5188 7.Ellery/Brabham Ford 6:51.19.7526 8.Perkins/ingall Holden 6:51.55.7868 9.Seton/Richards Ford 6:52.11.7864 10.McConville/Bates Holden 6:51.56.4869

CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS 1.Skaife 3050 2.Ingall 2595 3.Bright 2504 4.Johnson 2276 5.Murphy 2274 6.Kelly 2076 7.Radisich 1895 8.Tander 1835 9.Ellery 1810 10.Richards 1758

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