WIN FREE TICKETS TO SANDOWN NATIONALS

The 2009 Australian Circuit Racing season rounds up with the Shannon's Nationals from Sandown on November 29-30 and YOU can be there! Thanks to the Shannons Nationals, In Pit Lane is offering five lucky viewers the chance to be our guest at Sandown for what looks like a huge weekend of motorsport variety. The main event sees the glamour and excitement of the final round of the Australian GT Championship as Lamborghini driver Mark Eddy faces off against the Aston Martin of John Kaias in the fight for this year's title. But they wont have it all on their own though as several top drivers return to the series for the grand final. Australian motorsport legend John Bowe will return to to track driving with Ted Huglin in a Lamborghini Gallardo and as a five time GT race winner Bowe will be hard to beat.

HYUNDAI UNVEILS MILLEN BUILT “GT” GENESIS

BIG DAY FOR NISSAN AT AUTOPOLIS SUPER-GT

The Nissan GT-R of Satoshi Motoyama and Benoit Treluyer, won Kyushu 300, Round 8 of the Autobacs SUPER GT series at the Autopolis in Japan.  Starting from pole position lead driver Benoit Treluyer, made a great start to open up a significant lead. Co-driver Motoyama took over for the second half of the race and from then on was never threatened. The win was the team's third of the season but their first since way back in round two. They now lead the series outright with one round remaining.

RECORD ENTRY FOR HISTORIC SANDOWN

One of the highlights of the Victorian motor racing year  the VACC Historic Sandown on November 7-9 just got even better with the news that almost 360 cars have entered the event potentially equalling the record for the meeting. Despite the current economic crisis that has gripped the globe growth has occurred in all categories, with more than 20 Formula 5000s now confirmed for the VACC Trophy races, along with nearly 60 historic touring cars, and 70 classic and high performance cars spanning the history of the automobile have entered the popular Regularity (average speed) events.

PEUGEOT ON POLE FOR PETIT LE MANS

Puegeot's single car entry will start from pole for the 2008 Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta. Stephane Sarrazin's time of 1:06.242 (138.039 mph) just edged out the Audi Sport North America's R10 of  Allan McNish by 0.085 seconds to set up another classic confrontation between the two giants of international sports prototype racing. “We are very happy,“ said Sarrazin, who also captured pole position at the 24 Hours of Le Mans the last two years for Peugeot. “It is very good for us and the team. We will focus now on a good start and a long race for tomorrow. It is a different target now than Sebring (in March). We were a newer car then and we did not finish. Then we advanced at Le Mans, so now we have even more time with the car.“ The rapid improvement in Le Mans racing was clearly evident as in the  top 15 qualifiers were all under Marco Werner's pole-winning time of 1:08.906 (132.703 mph) from 2006, with Sarrazin 2.564 seconds under. Werner, himself qualified third in the second of the Audi R10 TDIs at 1:06.818 (136.849 mph). Penske Racing's Ryan Briscoe led a Porsche sweep of the top three qualifying positions in LMP2. Briscoe made a triumphant return to Road Atlanta with a class-record pole run of 1:07.061 (136.353 mph) in one of Penske's three Porsche RS Spyders that he will share with two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves.

NEW CORVETTES JOIN THE AUSSIE GT PARTY

Chevrolet will join the field for the steadily improving Australian GT championship with the news that both Neil  Bryson & Paul Freestone will be running Corvette's at Sandown in November. Bryson's car is the ex Ken James yellow machine imported from the Speed GT challenge in the USA but never run down under, the car will be prepared by Melbourne sportscar specialists Jocaro.  The car will run in the GT challenge class as it is not fully compliant with the series FIA GT3 specs. Freestone, who competed regularly in production car racing in the 90's in a Lotus and at the Calder Park Thunderdome will run his Corvette in the Production class.

MEGA MEGANE DEBUTS AT PARIS MOTORSHOW

The World Series by Renault's premier saloon car championship the Mégane Trophy has undergone a raft of radical modifications in readiness for the 2009 campaign. The most visible change concerns its new body design which takes its inspiration from the lines of the new Mégane Coupe revealed at the Paris Motorshow. Under the bonnet, a fresh look has also been taken at the Renault-Nissan Alliance's V6 3.5 24V powerplant which now delivers 360hp. At the same time, Renault Sport Technologies has carried over many of the acclaimed features of the current Mégane Trophy to produce a reliable, competitive and affordable racing car.

PORSCHE JOIN AUSSIE GT REVIVAL

Porsche will make a challenge to the 2009 the Australian GT Championship following the successful testing of a brand new GT3 997 Cup S model at Sydney's Eastern Creek Raceway. The latest GT3 spec Porsche model will join the ever increasing GT field and and based on the times set during the test the car will be a genuine threat in the GT Championship division. The 997 Cup S will be the first current model Porsche to race in the series in several years due to a controversial ban in the 997 GT3 Cup Car by CAMS in order to protect the Carrera Cup series. One of only fifteen cars produced and the first to arrive in Australia, the Porsche GT3 997 Cup S has all the necessary ingredients to compete with the Gallardo GT3 model Lamborghini, Aston Martin DBRS9, and Ferrari 430 GT3 that have been the ‘gun’ machines in this year’s Australian GT Championship.

NEW VIPER TO BITE DOWN UNDER

The Australian GT Championship has received a major boost with the news that regular competitor Ross Lilley will debut a brand new Dodge Viper at the final round of the series at Melbourne's Sandown Raceway in late November. The new V10 will replace Lilly's ex John Bowe Lamborhini Gallardo  which has been sold to former Porsche driver Dean Grant. Grant, is a veteran of  the Carrera Cup Championship (2003-2006) and was that Series Tag Heuer Champion in both 2004 and 2005.

YEAH, I WOULD

Would you drive a car called a Gumbert? Well if it accelerated from 0-100 in three seconds and levelled out at a top speed of 360 Km/h, then yeah, I probably would. Actually the car is called the Apollo which brings to mind sleazy discos of the 1980's where the music pumped all night, the drinks were cheap and you got blowjobs on the dance floor, but that's another story.