Two weeks ago at Bathurst it was top Australian driver Luke Youlden who shared the SP Tools Ford Falcon with Shane van Gisbergen. This weekend at the V8 Supercar series’ annual international meeting on the Gold Coast it is highly-rated Dutch driver Jeroen  Bleekemolen.

Monaco-based Bleekemolen, 30, is one of 28 internationals who have signed up to join the series regulars in this year’s 2 x 300km race Armor-All 600 event round the 2.96km street circuit in downtown Surfers Paradise.

Bleekemolen gets his first taste of racing V8 Supercar-style at a special test day at Ipswich’s Queensland Raceway today where he will line up with the likes of former Former 1 drivers Nick Heidfeld and Antonio Liuzzi, Indycar racers Marco Andretti, Graham Rahal and Justin Wilson and fellow sportscar and GT specialists Frank Montagny, Max Papis, Peter Dumbreck and David Brabham.

Though he is not as well known here as the likes of Andretti, Rahal and Aussie single-seater internationals Will Power and Ryan Briscoe, Bleekemolen is a two-time former Mobil1 Porsche SuperCup (the one-make Porsche GT3 Cup series which supports Formula 1) champion, has raced in Germany’s DTM series for two years and is a class winner in the Le Mans 24 hour race.

He has also raced in Australia before, behind the wheel of the Netherland’s entry in the A1 World Cup of Motorsport series in 2007 (when he raced at Eastern Creek) and in this year’s Armor All 12 Hour GT race at Bathurst in February in which he finished second.

SP Tools-backed Stone Brothers Racing driver van Gisbergen met him for the first time at the SuperCheap Auto Bathurst 1000 and says he is looking forward to working with the Dutchman this weekend.

“Definitely. He’s a good guy, and I think he will do a good job for us.”

Two years ago van Gisbergen was one of the real stars of the Gold Coast meeting, dicing with Jamie Whincup for the lead of the second race. He and 2011 co-driver, Emmanuele Pirro, were not quite as competitive last year but the young Kiwi  continues to rate the Gold Coast event as one of his favourites.

“Yes,” he says, “the atmosphere is always pretty cool and the racing’s always close, particularly since they shortened it (the circuit) a couple of years ago.”

This year, as last, the international co-drivers will compete for the Dan Wheldon Memorial Trophy, named for the Indianapolis-winning British driver who lost his life in an Indycar series accident at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last year.

Regular series drivers like van Gisbergen, meanwhile, will be mindful of the series points standings after Bathurst which see Jamie Whincup leading teammate Craig Lowndes with  Mark Winterbottom third, Will Davison fourth and  van Gisbergen fifth.

Team bosses, in turn, will be concerned by the fact that they have less than two weeks to turn their cars around before the next round of the 2012 series, at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi between November 02 and 04, and even less time to get them back to Australia and ready for the penultimate series round at Winton Motor Raceway between November 16 and 18.