Horse 903 - Triple Eight

oops

Ok so the date is 8-8-8. It's lucky according to the Chinese and for deliberately that reason why the Olympic Games "officially" start tonight. Having said all of that, a far more interesting Triple Eight is the point of discussion today.

Triple Eight Motorsport who run the factory Vauxhall team in the BTCC interestingly also happen to engineer a Ford team (Vodafone) in Australia's V8 Supercar team (go figure). For this year's Bathurst 1000, 888 are bringing reigning British Touring Car champion Fabrizio Giovanardi for a tilt at the crown. Basically, Australians beware... this guy is good.

The Italian, who has eight top-line touring car titles to his name in the European, British, Italian and Spanish championships, will contest the Australian V8 touring car round at Mount Panorama with Team Vodafone, who have won the event for the last two years.

He had planned to attend the race to watch his new teammate Matt Neal take part in the event, but his VX Racing team arranged the deal with their sister Triple Eight squad in Australia. Giovanardi will partner Briton Marc Hynes in a Ford Falcon, while previous winners Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup will share the team's other car.

Meanwhile 888's other front line driver in the BTCC, Matt Neal is also racing the Bathurst 1000 this year, driving for arch enemies Holden in the Supercheap Auto Racing team. That's not going to end in tears, is it?