After finishing third the previous year, Greg Murphy once again reigned triumphant by winning all three races of the weekend; making it four championship round victories from five attempts for the local hero.

After an early tangle between Marcos Ambrose and Craig Lowndes, Russell Ingall remained Murphy's closest competitor all weekend long.

The event was notable for a big crash that occurred between Craig Baird and Paul Dumbrell in the final race.

The shunt inflicted extensive damage to the track facilities, causing the race to be red flagged.

This was originally meant to be the last V8 Supercar event held at Pukekohe, with a move to a street race in Auckland having been confirmed for May 2006.

While the popularity of V8 Supercars in New Zealand enticed officials to explore the possibility of a second championship round in the region, the status of Pukekohe's place on the calendar was up in the air.

An estimate 170,000 people were expected to attend the event which would've taken place right in the heart of Auckland's city centre.

[3] Soon after the announcement, safety concerns arose to the circuits configuration, the disruption to proceedings in the CBD and other costs associated with the event.

Garth Tander was excluded from the shootout after his team was found to be in breach of rules pertaining to working on car without permission from the Category Technical Director after qualifying.

There was a brief scare for Craig Lowndes preceding the race after a wheel nut issue almost caused him to start from the pitlane.

Steven Richards hesitated as Lowndes spun across his bows and Murphy capitalised to move up to second place.

A couple laps later, Baird, Jason Bargwanna and Andrew Jones tangled at the same part of the track with each car sustaining damage.

Toward the end of the race, Simon Wills began to leak oil onto the track which caught out Glenn Seton, who had been running in the top ten, up to that point.

Ingall remained Murphy's closest pursuer with Skaife a couple seconds behind after the pitstop shuffle had concluded.

This win would be Murphy's first at Pukekohe since 2003 and the car speed suggested he was in prime position to retain his dominance at the venue.

Chaos ensued at turn three with Max Wilson cutting across the inside of the corner, crowding Lowndes into Steven Johnson and sent the Westpoint driver into a half-spin.

Skaife attempted to pass Ingall into the hairpin but locked up enormously, sent himself into a spin, and retreated to the pitlane to complete his compulsory pitstop, changing only the passenger-side tyres.

Besnard suffered multiple spins over the next few laps while White once again drew the ire of the officials; receiving a stop-and-hold penalty for pitlane speeding.

Murphy retained the lead into turn one while Ambrose and Lowndes collided yet again, sending the Pirtek Falcon onto the grass and losing positions to Radisich and Skaife.

Retiring from the race after bizarre incident where both right-hand side tyres went flat on the approach to the hairpin.

It was a timely intervention as, just moments after the deployment, Bargwanna crashed into the barrier on the back straight after his steering rack had come adrift.

At the end of lap 31, the first person to have been trapped out by the lack of grip on the circuit was Ellery, who had gone sideways over Ford Mountain.

As the cars pulled up on the grid to wait out the delay, crews rushed down to apply wet weather tyres.

Once the track was given the all-clear and cars began to peel off for the restart formation lap, in a bizarre scene, both Triple Eight Falcons failed to fire up and were pushed from the grid.

Despite a late charge from Ingall, Murphy crossed the line victorious while Steven Richards rounded out the podium.