This weekend sees the final V8 Supercars race at the Pukekohe race track in New Zealand. Next year's fly away race in the 'land of the long white cloud' will be a street race in Hamilton.

Always a chance at this round will be stalwart and passionate Kiwi Greg Murphy,  who has won four out of the seven race rounds so far and after last year's terrible race, which saw him involved in a big shunt on the first turn, he will, along with the other Kiwi’s in the V8 series, be attempting to write his own bit of history by becoming the last man to win at the circuit.

Of course the big guns will all be firing, such as the Kelly brothers (Rick and Todd), Garth Tander, James Courtney, Mark Skaife and Craig Lowndes. 

However, I see this as a crucial round for Ford star Craig Lowndes in the Team Vodafone 888 Falcon. Whilst he has consistently scored points in each of the five races this year, he is languishing in 9th place, with the current leader Rick Kelly more than double his points on 115 to Craig’s 50 so far. This is made worse by the fact that this year drivers will not be able to drop their worst round, so while consistency is the key this year, it will be no good if you have been consistently scoring low points.

In the last two years Craig has come tantalisingly close to claiming the crown for Ford, and who could forget the final race at Phillip Island in 2006, but he really has to break free of the bridesmaids tag and bag the trophy in 2007.

Lowndes started his career in 1996 racing for Holden in the Holden Racing Team (HRT) VR Commodore and won his debut V8 championship and in that same year winning Bathurst and Sandown to give him the Triple Crown.