Supercars great Craig Lowndes prepares for his last tilt at Bathurst 1000
ON the eve of his final race at Bathurst as a full-time Supercars driver, legend Craig Lowndes concedes defeat is inevitable.
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ON the eve of his final race at Bathurst as a full-time Supercars driver, legend Craig Lowndes concedes defeat is inevitable.
Not in the Great Race, but in the other contest he’s entered this week against wife Lara in their caravan.
“We started a game of Scrabble on the way down,” Lowndes told The Saturday Telegraph.
“Let’s just say I’m closing the gap on her, I’m not quite there yet.”
Lowndes races in his 25th Bathurst 1000 on Sunday in front of 200,000 fans, and admits it will be a sad day as he prepares for retirement.
“It’s a chapter of a book, motor racing has been half my life, 22 of my 44 years,” Lowndes said.
“I’m really looking forward to the next chapter, I’m really comfortable with the decision we’ve made.
“A lot of people have come up to me and told me they’ve followed my whole career, so it’s a journey for everyone.
“It will be sad on Sunday, this is the fifth year I’ve raced with Richo [co-driver Steven Richards].”
The six-time Bathurst champion paid tribute to Lara, a management consultant who handles much of their racing business, as well as sitting on the board of the Prince Charles Hospital Foundation in their home town of Brisbane.
“She is a massive help, I wouldn’t be able do what I do without her,” Lowndes said.
“She organises drinks and towels for me and Steve over the course of the race.
“We manage ourselves; that is a huge time commitment, besides organising diaries and functions which is a huge part of my life.
“And the other side is that she balances that with her own work. A lot of the time we’re time-poor, so organisation is critical.”
The couple, who married in 2015, have made a routine of driving to Bathurst from Brisbane in their caravan and catching their dinners on the way down.
“The trip we take down the east coast, this is our fifth or sixth time, it is the calm before the storm,’ Lowndes said.
“It’s nice to have balance, have the road trip down.
“We get up early and go training, whether it’s stand-up paddle boarding, road riding on our mountain bikes, or swimming.
“We come back and regroup for lunch, and then we’ll be fishing on rocks in the afternoon.
“We both enjoy getting out in a caravan and seeing Australia.
“We’ve worked out a program where we don’t normally stay at one caravan park for more than four nights, because word gets around and people come knocking.
“But I enjoy it. People ask me ‘Why do you stay at caravan parks?’ It was how I was brought up, it takes me back to my roots.”
Lowndes and Richards will race for the final time for the AutoBarn Lowndes Racing team and should they win, he would be second only to nine-time champion Peter Brock for victories at Bathurst.
He’ll still be involved in next year’s event, assisting Triple Eight stars Jamie Whincup or Shane van Gisbergen, two of his main rivals this year, while Lowndes is already in discussions with FoxSports to become a motoring commentator while planning to tackle the Le Mans 24-hour race in 2019.
“My role will be as the co-driver to Jamie or Shane next year, I’ll help the team in other ways, in the commercial side a lot more,” Triple Eight owner Lowndes said.
“I think it’s going to be just as busy with the broadcasting and being an ambassador for Supercars and I would still like to keep racing categories in other places.”
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