He went left, and was right

Lowndes was hassling the championship leader Rick Kelly around lap 24 when Kelly's rear tyre delaminated at the high speed area of The Chase.

Kelly later estimated his speed at more than 290km/h.

As Kelly spun backwards through the sand, Lowndes took the more orthodox route on the bitumen.

Kelly's Toll racer careered through the sand and stayed backwards across the road in front of Lowndes, who had to make an instant decision — go left or right of Kelly.

He chose left — and was right. Kelly's errant Holden had enough speed to clear the road as Lowndes squeezed through underneath him.

Kelly stayed cool and brought the car back to the pits for co-driver Garth Tander but admitted he was shaken by the incident.

Had the two cars collided, the accident would almost certainly have been the end of the race for both. That would have meant the four top drivers in the championship being left pointless from the feature race of the season, opening up the championship to countless permutations.

The Toll car of Kelly and Tander continued to have problems throughout the race after encountering persistent brake problems but the Vodafone drivers stayed on the pace all afternoon.

The race result, with Lowndes having to avoid a similarly frightening episode with Mark Winterbottom later in the race, meant Lowndes and Whincup overtook the championship lead of Kelly and Tander to set up a four-way race to season's end with four rounds of the championship to go.