Like their team's mascot, the lion, Holden Racing Te꧋am stars Mark Skaife and Todd Kelly will follow their primal instincts and form a pack to hunt down the 2005 V8 Supercar Championship.

Skaife, placed fourth in championship standings, and Kelly, fifth, are each within 110 points of the championship leader with a maximum of 384 points still available over the final two rounds, and said they would work closely to hunt down the three drivers ahead of thꦰem over the final two rounds.

"There are five drivers left in championship contention. It's pretty certain the other three will all be looking out for themselves, so Todd and I already have a significant advantage," said Skaife, who t𒉰his weekend will make his 100th championship start since joining HRT in 1998, and needs just one more round victory toไ tie Peter Brock's all-time career record of 37 round victories.

"We each have one less contender than the others to worry ꦬabout, and a potential ally out there if we need it. It's always easier to hunt in packs than to be alone, being stalked.

"We both have a burning desire to win the championship, but we have a𝄹greed for the team's sake that we won't jeopardise each othe💖r's run at it."

The pair goes to Tasmania's Symꦑmons Plains Raceway this weekend with plenty of confidence, after Kelly last year set both the qualifying and race lap records when the series visited the track for the first time since 1999.

"We were fast there last year," Kelly said. "We were on the pace from the word go and it was all looking great until I had a mechanical drama in🌞 the last race.

"I like the track a lot - apart from one seriously tight hairp♛in it flows really well and if you get through the hairpin and get the power down, you can use straight-line speed to pick up spots on the back straight.꧃"

Despite a mechanical failure costing him dearly in the previous round, the Gillette V8 Supercar Challenge on the Gold 🌳Coast, Kelly said that with hindsight he could also take heart at how many of the leading contenders also came to grief.

"Anyone who thinks this championship is done and dusted is kidding themselves," he said. "You only have to look at what happened at Indy to realize we still have a lot of racing ahead of u✅s and that the championship scenario c📖an change in a heartbeat.

"Skaifey and I have aও couple of things working in our favour - we will be looking out for each other out there, and we have excellent data available to us for both Symmons Plains and Phillip Island, where we have tested this year.

"Also, our engineers will be working together to maximise the speed we can dial into both cars. That's a significant advantage for u🧸s."

Skaife agreed. "We h🦂ave plenty going for us and the chance to be the first team to ﷺown both the championship and Bathurst silverware since we did it in 2001 and 2002," he said.

"This would have to be the tightest battle for the champion✱ship in years, and any one of the five contenders can win it."