LAST month there were flames, now Dean Campbell hopes any talk of being on fire is because he's racing to victory at the Bathurst International this week.
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The Bathurst driver and his crew are expected to complete repair work on their Mitsubishi Evo X on Monday, the car having been damaged by fire late last month at Tailem Bend.
Not only does Campbell plan to form part of the Australian Production Car series finale that will be staged as part of the Bathurst International, he's planning for success too.
"It was a minor fire really, it just caused a lot of electrical problems," Campbell said.
"It's [the car] all back together but it won't start, we think the ECU is fried so we'll try to get a new one on Monday and fix it. We're 99 percent sure that it's going to be fine, I don't want to miss it.
"We go to win, we don't go to come second. That's how I think anyway."
This season is Campbell's first in the Australian Production Car series and while there have been challenges, he heads to the Bathurst International sitting second in the A1 class and eighth outright.
It's a position he's surprised to be in.
"We didn't really have any expectations, we just turn up. Everyone wants to win, that's the plan, but we all know that doesn't happen every weekend," he said.
"But definitely we weren't expecting to be in this spot on the ladder."
It is the man who sits 79-points ahead of him in the A1 class, Jimmy Vernon, who is actually responsible for Campbell still being a chance of winning the championship.
After the engine of Campbell's Mitsubishi caught fire during opening practice at The Bend, Vernon offered him a co-driver seat for the round.
Campbell naturally accepted the offer and went on to post his first outright national series win.
The gesture from Vernon is one Campbell is still praising.
"We'd been friendly with each other, were not enemies by any means, but we obviously want to beat each other so what he did was really good, you don't see that very often," Campbell said.
"He'll probably still win the championship because he's got such a gap, he deserves to win, but what he did was unreal. It was good of him really.
"He knows how much effort you go through to get to these things and for it all to be over after the first three laps was pretty bad.
"That outright win at Tailem Bend was unreal. There was a fair celebration going on when I won."
At the Bathurst event, which runs from Friday to Sunday, there will be 144 points on offer across four, 30-minute races.
Campbell and his co-driver Cameron Crick are eager to claim as many of those points possible, but with a 44-car entry list he's tipping "it will be pretty wild".
"It is exciting to race there [Mount Panorama], to keep it off the concrete is the biggest thing," he laughed.
"It's a good category to be honest and even the state series, there's some top level guys in that let alone the Australian guys.
"Some of the state guys will be at this event and if people think they're not as good as the Australian guys they're wrong, there's some strong guys in that.
"They've all got a ton of experience, they're no slouches that's for sure."
As for the weather, while rain is predicted for the three-day event - Sunday rated a 90 percent chance for between 10-20 millimetres - that doesn't worry Campbell.
"I'm hoping for the rain, I won in the wet so I'm happy to drive in the rain. I'm happy to drive in any conditions," he said.
The first of the four Australian Production Car races will start at 5.10pm on Friday at Mount Panorama.
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