Having enjoyed some of the best races of his V8 Supercar career to date at Melbourne’s Sandown circuit SP Tools-backed Kiwi ace Shane van Gisbergen goes into this weekend’s Dick Smith Sandown 500 with high hopes.

In 2008 van Gisbergen finished a fast-closing second to eventual winner Craig Lowndes in the second of three sprint races at the Midas 400 meeting circuit, and last year at the Norton 360 event the young Kiwi finished fifth in the first race and sixth in the second.

This year the Sandown event reverts to a two-driver enduro format, taking over from the previous pre-Bathurst shakedown meeting at Phillip Island.

Stone Brothers Racing has gone for a mix of youth and experience as far as co-drivers are concerned with Melbourne driver Luke Youlden joining van Gisbergen, Kiwi veteran Craig Baird pairing with Lee Holdsworth, and former karting champ Andrew Thompson alongside Tim Slade.

And though van Gisbergen is fifth in the series points standings heading into this weekend’s Sandown meeting team principal Ross Stone was moved to defend the Yatala, Queensland-based outfit’s performance after the most recent round of the V8 Supercar series in Sydney.

Under the headline – Ross Stone: Don’t write us off – Stone told BigPond Sport;

“Our cars at the moment are actually quite good race cars. They’ve got good speed in the race, but in qualifying the guys are having trouble getting a good time out of them. We just need to make sure we do our homework at Sandown and come out strong. I’m really happy with our co-drivers and think they are a really good combination. We just need a few things to go our way and any result is possible I reckon.”

This weekend sees a unique race format with practice today (Friday), a single 20 minute qualifying session then two 20 lap qualifying races (one per driver) on Saturday before a 20-minute warm-up in the morning then 161 lap/500km endurance race on Sunday afternoon.