First Winner: Tander took this car to his first V8 Supercar race win in the 1999 season. Here he is on his way to second overall to Jason Bright at Darwin that year.
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6:00 AM Sat 21 January, 2012
Source: BigPond Sport
WE received an email a while back from Dave Alderson in Perth, Western Australia asking about a car that fellow West Aussie Garth Tander drove for the Garry Rogers Motorsport team in 1999.
Tander drove it for the first half of the 1999 Shell Championship Series, before moving into a brand new VT Commodore later in the year at Winton.
But the VS model he has been driving had indeed been an ex-Holden Racing Team Commodore – chassis 031 to be exact.
Before Tander had got his hands on it, this car had been built new in 1995 and debuted by Tomas Mezera at Phillip Island that year as a VR model.
Craig Lowndes put it on pole position at Bathurst later that year before becoming the car he used for the first half of his 1996 Australian Touring Car Championship-winning season.
Greg Murphy took it over for the end-of-season Mobil Sprint series in New Zealand, with the Kiwi taking victory on home soil.
This car was wheeled out again for Murphy after his massive accident at Phillip Island and he used it for the remainder of the ’97 ATCC before it was rested for the endurance races.
It was sold to Garry Rogers Motorsport and became Jason Bargwanna’s #35 Valvoine car in 1998, with ‘Bargs’ winning his first V8 Supercar race at Calder aboard it and pairing with Jim Richards to finish third on the podium at Bathurst.
Garth Tander took it over for 1999 when Bargwanna moved into the first GRM-built VT Commodore, driving it up until Winton when he debuted the second new GRM VT.
In Tander’s hands the car finished on the podium at Eastern Creek (third), Hidden Valley (second, pictured), Queensland Raceway (victory) and Calder (second with a race win in the final of the day).
Paul Morris’ team bought the car for its arrival in V8 Supercars in 2000 and it remained as a spare car while he used a newer ex-HRT Commodore in Big Kev yellow colours.
This car was wheeled back out for the Calder round after the other car was destroyed in the massive start line accident at Oran Park – it was then used up until the arrival of an ex-HRT VT to the team in time for the Queensland 500.
Owen Kelly and Aaron McGill ran the car as the #67 Big Kev Commodore at Bathurst though retired very early from what would turn out to be its last race start.
It was sold to expat Kiwi Steve Andrew in Queensland and he’s worked on putting it back to 1996 #15 Lowndes ATCC-winning livery and appeared on track on the Saturday at the 2008 Muscle Car Masters at Eastern Creek.
Andrew retains the car and it holds a special place among his collection.
“When I was in New Zealand I wanted one so badly but it was just a dream over there,” he says.
“Peter Brock and Greg Murphy came over to NZ in 1996 for the Wellington and Pukekohe races and I just loved those cars.
“As it happened one was sitting at Paul Morris’ and a mate of mine showed me it in a magazine. I knew it was an ex-HRT car but once I bought it I learnt the (chassis) numbers and where it fitted into things.
“It was still in the Big Kev colours from Morris when I bought it. It was pretty out of shape so we straightened her up and re-skinned it. As far as the mechanicals go, it’s all original HRT underneath.
“We just had to put the engine and gearbox back in and find the original computer and away we went.”
Having tracked down the original Bathurst 1995 engine (yep, the one that failed and put the car out of the race before the first pit stop), is also a big bonus – the same engine number 11 was in the car in 1996 as Lowndes went on his tear and sped away to a commanding championship position.
‘Saturday Sleuthing’ has become a regular feature of the BigPond Sport V8 Supercars site each Saturday on non-race weekends and will be going strong right throughout summer.
So what car would you like us to find?
Email ask@v8supercars.com.au with your queries and we’ll add them to our list!
And drop us a line if you think you’ve done some Sleuthing of your own!
