Kiwi foes had Australians worried for a while, writes Eric Thompson.
Craig Lowndes and Mark Skaife won their second consecutive L&H 500, the first of the V8 Supercars endurance rounds on Sunday.
But, it wasn't all that easy for the TeamVodafone pair. If Kiwis Shane van Gisbergen and John McIntyre hadn't run into car trouble, Lowndes would have had a mighty scrap on his hands.
Lowndes is running four from four after winning all three races at the Ipswich 300 and remains in touch with championship leader Jamie Whincup, who finished second. Will Davison rounded out the top three.
"It's been a pretty smooth weekend for us as a team. Everything we have done has worked. It's been a big effort from the team all year, not just this weekend," Lowndes said. "When Shane was closing that gap I radioed in and said I didn't want to go any faster and burn the tyres and have nothing left to fight if he got to us. Shane got to about three seconds away but must have had a problem and then went backwards as fast as he came up to me. It was a blessing for me. We were pushing as hard as we could."