The drought has broken!!

The pictures above say it all...

... after 8 years of agony and despair the soul searching can finally end. Ford has won Bathurst for the first time since 1998! Craig Lowndes, his co-driver Jamie Whincup and the Triple Eight Race Engineering team are the toast of Ford fans across Australia, and around the world, and are ironically the first to put their names on the Peter Brock Trophy.

After a day of drama and action it seems fitting that Lowndesy, for a long time Brocky's protege, got to lift the trophy and celebrate Brocky's life in style. Lowndesy was earlier involved in a moving tribute to Brocky whereby he drove one of Brocky's old victorious Torana's around Mount Panorama. It was obviously an emotional time for him as at one point the camera panned on to him standing beside the car and he was openly crying. He was crying during his victory speech on the podium too and it obviously meant a lot to him. Well done Craig!

Unfortunately the joy and elation of yesterdays Ford win was tempered heavily by the news that Mark Porter, one of the two drivers involved in Thursday's big crash, passed away yesterday afternoon. It seems that my gut feeling at the time, when I blogged that I had fears for their lives was unfortunately well founded. I stand by the anger in my post directed towards Channel Ten but in no way did I mean to imply any anger or disrespect to the drivers involved in the incident, and in no way was I blaming them for the coverage dramas. My heart goes out to Mark Porter's family and friends at this time as I am sure does the hearts of motorsport fans the world over.

I guess it just rams home the point that motorsport is a dangerous business and that despite the fact our heroes make it look easy there is always an element of risk and the smallest of elements can make a race go tragically wrong.

Yesterday was such a joyous day yet such a sad day at the same time...