Michael Caruso stuns V8 big guns at Hidden Valley

Source: www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,25668619-11088,00.html

HOLDEN rookie reject Michael Caruso survived a late charge by Craig Lowndes to win his first V8 race at Hidden Valley.

An emotional Caruso later revealed that Garry Rogers Motorsport was the only team prepared to give him a drive.

"No one else wanted me," Caruso said. "Gary gave me my shot when no one else would.

"To win is just unbelievable. I can't believe we led for virtually the whole race. To come away with this is just something special."

To top off a frustrating day for Lowndes, Alex Davison stormed home on soft tyres to take second place.

Davison was sacked from V8 Supercars in 2005, with Larry Perkins declaring the older brother of Holden star Will was talentless.

"I doubted myself," Davison said.

"You tell everyone you're OK but it was very hard no matter how positive you try and stay.

"The last opportunity I had in V8 Supercar, well we never had any pace and I never showed any promise.

"Blokes were telling the car was OK but it was a load of rubbish but I believed it for a little while.

"It just wasn't a nice experience with Larry. I had worked my whole life to get to that point and I had made a decision to come back to Europe to drive for that guy and he is just not a very nice man."

But the day belonged to Caruso, who survived a late safety car to break a 62-race drought for Garry Rogers Motorsport.

His previous best was a sixth place.

"We saved our sticky tyre for the race and it seemed to work," Caruso said. "I knew the guys behind me were coming and it was a hard task coming home.

"Having someone like Craig Lowndes in my mirrors was very intimidating, so to come away with this win is very special."

The V8 big guns struggled on the second day of racing in Darwin as the temperature inside the cars exceeded 50C.

Championship leader Jamie Whincup finished 10th after a horror qualifying session while Holden Racing Team star Davison finished in 19th after an incident late in the race.

Lowndes paid tribute to the Caruso and Davison after the race.

"It is always nice to have new winner in the category," Lowndes said.