The second annual Desert 400 for the V8 Supercars Australia Championship Series produced three days of entertainment for a record-breaking crowd of more than 33,000 people.
As the 12th round of the 14-round V8 Supercar championship, Bahrain played host to a thrilling battle between the championship contenders of the Toll HSV Dealer Team Holdens and the Team Vodafone Fords who played snakes and ladders in an event claimed by Mark 'Frosty' Winterbottom and his Ford Performance Racing team.
Although his Ford Falcon was one of the four V8 Supercars damaged in an accident involving the lorry and trailer and a Bahraini lady driver on the final leg of the Supercars' 12,000km journey from Australia last Wednesday, Winterbottom was on serene form and monopolised the top of the timesheets in Practice, Qualifying two of the three races that made up the Desert 400.
This consolidates the Prodrive-run Ford Performance Racing team as the Supercar masters of Bahrain, following the team's victory at the inaugural Desert 400 in 2006.
In Winterbottom's wake there was action and drama aplenty, most of which involved the title protagonists in this year's V8 Supercar showdown.
Just as has been the case in Formula One this year, the Supercars are seeing a thrilling title battle between four drivers from two teams: defending champion Rick Kelly and team mate Garth Tander in the Toll HSV Dealer Team Holden Commodores and three-time champion Craig Lowndes with his team mate Jamie Whincup in the Team Vodafone Ford Falcons.
Coming into Bahrain it was Whincup who had just edged out longtime leader Tander at the top of the points standings, but a first lap fracas in Bahrain's opening race on Friday eliminated both of the Team Vodafone cars.
It was the Toll Holden of Tander that then reclaimed his championship lead overnight after chasing Winterbottom to the finishline in Race 1 while the Team Vodafone mechanics burnt the midnight oil to make urgent repairs to their two Fords.
Saturday morning's Race 2 brought the kind of fender-bending action for which the muscular V8 Supercars are renowned as the fortunes of the title contenders began to twist and turn.
Tander's plans to race conservatively and collect as many points as possible went seriously awry when a demon start took him past pole man Winterbottom into Turn 1.
Winterbottom immediately fought back and, as Tander let him go, he found his team mate Rick Kelly also trying to find a way through into Turn 1.
The two Toll Holden team mates touched and Tander spun, allowing virtually the entire field to pass him. Kelly was then savaged by a hard-charging Mark Skaife in the works Holden and dropped back down the order himself, leaving a chastened Toll Holden team struggling to capitalise on Team Vodafone's earlier misfortunes.
A stirring recovery drive from Craig Lowndes, meanwhile, saw the triple champion giving a lesson in Supercar driving en route from 30th on the grid to sixth at the flag, completing Ford's clean sweep of the top six positions in Race 2.
The post-race debriefing within the Toll Holden team must therefore have been spectacular, while the wily triple Supercar champion Lowndes took great strides in his efforts to wrest the title from their grasp.
For Lowndes's team-mate Whincup, however, there was heartache. Some bruising encounters in the midfield melee left him trailing to finish 23rd and out of the points once again, while the Toll Holden drivers recovered seeing Rick Kelly finish 12th and Garth Tander rescue a point in 15th place.
This left Winterbottom virtually assured of the round win prior to the final race of the weekend.
Starting on pole for the third time out of three starts, however, 'Frosty's' flawless weekend took a dip as he struggled to put all 650bhp of his Ford down cleanly off the startline.
Next to him former Jaguar Formula One driver James Courtney got an immaculate start to lead the field with Will Davison snapping at his heels, Winterbottom third and both Steven Johnson and Craig Lowndes joining the train of Ford Falcons at the front of the field.
The savvy of Lowndes and the 888 Team Vodafone strategists then came into play, making best use of his tyres and a serious turn of speed to ensure that after the mandatory pit stops were completed the silver and orange Falcon was leading ahead of Courtney, with Winterbottom prevailing to finish third.
In his wake Davison fell back into the clutches of a hard charging Garth Tander, determined to regain as much momentum as possible after his disastrous Race 2 and taking Davison's scalp and those invaluable points for fourth place.
As Mark Winterbottom celebrated the second event victory of his promising career, the championship itself was blown wide open. Tander powered back to the top of the 2007 standings but with only a 20-point advantage over Lowndes with two races to go. Whincup slipped from the championship lead back to third, ahead of a similarly off-form Rick Kelly.
A grand total of 33,297 people attended the three days of the 2007 Desert 400 weekend in Bahrain, making a new record crowd for the event compared to the 28,250 figure achieved in 2006.
The spectators enjoyed an array of entertainment in the public areas as well as the V8 Supercar action - and a full schedule of races from across the region on the supporting racecard.
