Jamie Whincup has again shone in the Townsville sun, earning two meet wins to kick-start his V8 Supercars championship defence.
Whincup impressed with a strong drive in the lucrative Sunday race, overcoming Garth Tander to narrow the gap to series leader Mark Winterbottom to 96 points.
In a race dominated by pit-stop strategy, Whincup and Tander emerged as contenders despite following different refuelling patterns.
Whincup re-entered the field behind Tander after completing his two-stop plan, but the reigning champion reeled in Tander with less than twenty laps to go and was never headed.
"We're all coming for Frosty," he said, referring to the series leader's well-worn nickname.
"We haven't won a Sunday race all year ... we haven't been able to go that distance.
"But it feels like a home race for me ... today was an awesome feeling."
Whincup's domination of Townsville is clear - he's won an incredible seven of the street circuit's 13 races.
But his Red Bull Racing teammate Craig Lowndes again caught attention for the wrong reasons, trailing the field home after mechanical trouble.
Given point penalties and crashing out of race one, Lowndes' car consistently lost water through the race, forcing him to pit several times on the way to a 23rd-place finish.
It all added up to a tough weekend for Lowndes, who started the weekend in second place in the championship but sunk to sixth by the end of the meet.
The 250 kilometre race was without the ballistic driving of the shorter races, though an early safety car from the lap one retirements of Jack Perkins and Dale Wood forced teams into a strategy rethink.
With a mandatory two stops across the 250 kilometre race, two thirds of the field took the opportunity to fill up their tanks.
The Ford Pepsi Max Crew made an early blunder by bringing in Chaz Mostert and Winterbottom at the same time, leaving the championship leader waiting in the pit-lane.
He re-entered in 20th position, but a strong drive through the field lifted him to sixth by race's end.
Pole-sitter Jason Bright also endured a tough start, handed a drive-through penalty for a spinning wheel at a pit-stop. He finished 17th.
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