Lowndes: That's the way it goes sometimes.

Ford Performance Racing's Craig Lowndes retired from the second 30 lap Surfers Paradise V8 Supercar street race while running second, some 3/10ths of a second behind the eventual race winner, Greg Murphy, after contact with the tyres. Though the Ford man was rather frustrated after getting out of the car, he could soon reflect back on his otherwise fine performance.

The CAT FPR Falcon driver was in full-attack mode from the moment the green light sent the 32 car field out for battle, Lowndes powered from 4th on the grid into second behind Murphy at the first chicane.

The triple Champion remained second in a thrilling nose to tail battle with Murphy for 18 laps, the gap between the two rivals remaining under half a second throughout. The Bathurst 1000 winner and runner-up drivers also swapped fastest lap times as they charged away from the rest of the field on the Surfers Paradise street circuit.

After having tagged a chicane tyre bundle once on the second lap, Lowndes reported a bent steering early, but this did not excessively hamper his car speed. In the heat of his battle with Murphy, (lap18) the Holden driver made an error and Lowndes tried to capitalise on it by mounting a move, but he clipped a tyre bundle again and this time it caused terminal damage to the Falcon's steering.

"I has some issues throughout practice with tagging the tyres and bending the steering, unfortunately during the race I hit the tyres too many times and broke the steering mid way through my battle with Murphy," said Lowndes after the race. "I was enjoying the fight very much, even though I had initially bent the steering on the second lap. I could maintain pace with Murphy and I was getting into a good rythym until I tried to take advantage of a mistake by Murphy and hit the tyres again. Unfortunately that's the way it goes sometimes."