Bathurst Champs Race To Defend Title

The 2008 12 Hour winners return to the mountain with a Bathurst winner and a brand new car.

Last year, the SKWIRK team of Rod Salmon and Damien White brought an Evo IX to the WPS Bathurst 12 Hour at Mt Panorama, hoping to make the top 10. They finished on the top spot on the podium.

This year, the team will aggressively defend their crown, adding Bathurst 1000 winner Tony Longhurst to the driver line-up, and debuting a new Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X.

"We are coming back to Mt Panorama for only one reason - to win," said team owner and driver Rod Salmon.

"Last year we went there with the thought of a top 10 finish. We only decided to enter five weeks beforehand, and the Evo IX was a hard-lived tarmac rally car. There was a lot of last-minute preparation; even our practice time was spent reconfiguring the entire setup of the car.

"But this year, the preparations started in July 2008 when the new Evo X was ordered, and it has been engineered from front to back for tarmac circuit racing."

The #1 car was prepared by the frontrunners in Evo X development worldwide, Team Mitsubishi Ralliart (TMR), under the direction of team manager Alan Heaphy and Peter West.

During its first test at Bathurst in December, starting driver Damien White easily matched last year's qualifying times - on a damp track.

"The new TMR Evo X is a work of art," said White.

"It's easier to drive than the Evo IX. My second lap during testing this week at Broadford was easily quicker than the Evo IX in years gone by. You can see that TMR are as pumped as we are about the race - bring it on!

"I am also looking forward to sharing the car with a driver of Tony Longhurst's calibre. It's a great measure to be in the same car on the same day as someone who has won the Bathurst 1000 twice.

Though the focus on the day will be beating the other competitors, not each other."

Longhurst was chosen for both his past Bathurst wins, and his recent success competing in tarmac rally with a similar AWD turbocharged car.

"I'm excited to be driving with Rod and Damien; they won last year so I'm basically jumping into the best car down there," said Longhurst.

"I've done thousands of kays around Bathurst, and it's still my favourite place to race. But I haven't driven there for a couple of years, and I'm itching to get back on it.

"The Evo X feels great. It's a bit different to what I've driven (at Bathurst) but it's a rock solid car, a great team and a great challenge."

The SKWIRK team faces tough competition from a star-studded grid, including former Bathurst Champions Russell Ingall, John Bowe, Peter McLeod and Jason Bargwanna, V8 drivers Steve Johnson, Glenn Seton, Brad Jones, Steve Owen and Neil Crompton, Australian Rally Champions Neal Bates and Simon Evans, and Hollywood star and steerer Eric Bana.

Channel 9 personality Grant Denyer will also return to the mountain after a monster truck accident sidelined him before the Bathurst 1000 last October. He rejoins father and son team Tony and Klark Quinn in the Evo VIII that challenged Salmon's team to the last lap in 2008.

"The field has blown out, the reputations are bigger, the teams and cars are better - but so are we," Salmon finished.

The 2009 WPS Bathurst Showroom Enduro will be held at Mount Panorama on February 20-22.

For more information, call BathurstRacePR on +61 411 494 414, and visit www.bathurstrace.com.au on race weekend for live updates and multimedia.

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