It’s a case of ‘back to business’ for SP Tools-backed Kiwi V8 Supercar ace Shane van Gisbergen at Bathurst this weekend after one of the busiest – not to mention most significant – off-track months of his career.

Just days after September’s Dick Smith Sandown 500 in Melbourne, team boss Ross Stone announced that Stone Brothers Racing would partner with Erebus Racing in a move from Ford to AMG Mercedes-Benz then a week after that van Gisbergen agreed terms with the organisers of New Zealand’s Cody’s D1NZ National Drifting Championship to drive Kiwi drifter Shane Allen’s V8-engined Ford Falcon in a new Drifters vs V8 Supercar drivers ‘Legends Challenge’ at Hampton Downs in March next year.

That meant a quick trip home to test the car (at Hampton Downs last Friday) then return to Australia – and straight through to Bathurst – on Monday.

This year’s 50th annual 1000km endurance race at Bathurst is the sixth for van Gisbergen and the move next year to an AMG E-class car means it will be his last behind the wheel of a Ford Falcon. The 2012 event also marks the 35th anniversary of a famous Ford one-two form finish (by Allan Moffat and Colin Bond) in 1977 and the 45th anniversary of the first win by a V8-powered car, and first win by a Ford Falcon, in 1967.

And van Gisbergen?

He has always shown impressive form at ‘the Mountain,’ his best qualifying effort to date ninth then fifth in the Top Ten Shootout last year and his best finish in the 161 lap/1000km race sixth with fellow Kiwi Johnny McIntyre in both 2010 and 2011.

In fact, with his first V8 Supercar pole, and his and co-driver Luke Youlden’s qualifying race wins then fifth overall at last month’s Dick Smith Sandown 500 in Melbourne van Gisbergen  and Youlden are in a very strong position heading into this weekend’s meeting.

The TAB certainly thinks so, rating them sixth best bet to win with odds of a win at 30-to-one compared with joint favourites Jamie Whincup/Paul Dumbrell and Craig Lowndes/Warren Luff at three-to-one and – at the other extreme – series newcomers Taz Douglas and Scott Pye at 1,500-to-one.

The team’s have spent the week at Bathurst with the cars heading up the Mountain for the first time this year on Thursday with further practice sessions on Friday, then qualifying and the Top Ten Shootout on Saturday and the race set to start at 10.30am on Sunday.  In New Zealand teh event will be covered by TV3 from 10.00am on Sunday morning.