Chilled out Stoner up for wheel-change Here it is ... Casey Stoner, left, unveils his Red Bull Holden for the second-tier V8 Supercars series. THE world of sport provides plenty of examples of champions in one discipline who switched to another code. Some have found success and proved themselves magnificent all-rounders, while others discovered their talents could not reach the levels they did in their earlier endeavours. In motor racing, the change from two wheels to four might look straightforward, but history proves it is not. Casey Stoner is the latest motorcycle champion (following in the tyre marks of Wayne Gardner) to make the jump. Stoner will begin his new career in Adelaide when he climbs into his Red Bull Racing V8 Supercar on Thursday for his first practice laps in the Dunlop Series, the second-tier championship for tyro V8 racers. The 27-year-old stunned the bike world when he announced last year he would quit the MotoGP championship. He was, it was said, disillusioned with the constant travel, fed up with the goldfish-bowl world he was forced to live in and tired of the demands on his time. On Wednesday, as he unveiled his new ride in the South Australian capital, the diminutive Stoner, 27, seemed relaxed, happy and genuinely excited at this new chapter in his life, admitting that he felt a bit nervous and had no idea of how things might develop when he gets out on to the tricky, wall-lined Adelaide street circuit for the first time. Stoner had planned to take more time out than the few months he has. But when an offer came up from the Triple Eight Racing team (which runs the Red Bull entry) he felt that it was too good to say no, especially as he knew he wanted to come back to motor sport at some time. The skills he learnt and the experience he had on two wheels will not, he suggests, be all that applicable to his new career. Riding a GP motorbike is a sensory experience requiring bravery, balance and skill. Car racing requires the same elements, but in a different way. On a bike you could feel someone coming up the inside of you. We are pushing such a rate of air and if your air is disturbed behind you, you can tell because you almost get sucked back," Stoner said. You can feel them, even if they are not in your vision, because you can feel your leg out being pushed by the air. In a car I am surrounded [and the sensitivity to the surroundings is not quite as intense]. He says there is little that is directly transferable. I suppose my understanding of grip, that's about it. With these cars there's only a certain amount of grip you can get, with the bike you can change position slightly and do more to get more grip. Much of it is your brake control, your turn through a corner. Those are the things [about which] I am going to be behind everyone else. They are all used to having two [extra] wheels there and how to get it loaded properly and through the turn. My understanding of grip in the rear is I think good enough but the other aspects of my driving need to improve. Not many choose to go out at the top as Stoner did. But he is delighted with his move. It is no secret that he had frosty relationships with the media and, riding the bike aside, it often seemed as though he was ill at ease with the Euro-centric world in which he lived. To go away from the pressures and everything of MotoGP is massive. Taking nothing away from this championship [but] it's not a world championship. You take a lot of the travelling aspects away from it. The fact that you can communicate with everyone in the paddock is quite unique to me, the fact that you can just pull up and have a chat with anyone and make it work.