TANDER & DAVISON VICTORIOUS AT BATHURST

11/10/2009 autobabes_iMag MotorSport, V8 SuperCars 0

– Anestis

Toll HRT Race Team partnership Garth Tander and Will Davison stood victorious today as the
rain and numerous safety car appearances saw a controversial end to Vodafone Team Lowndes / Whincup’s 3 season lead.

As the rain poured down for the second half of the race, it seemed to be raining Lions as the
Holden cars took a clean sweep 1, 2, 3 and 4 leaving Team Vodafone the only Ford representative in the Top 5.

“We had really, really good car speed in all conditions;” said Tander, “and it was just a matter of lining up the fuel stops to the end so poor Will had to struggle around for about seven laps on wets on a dry track but then it opened up our fuel window to get us to the end,”

In true V8 SuperCar fashion, the race was a tight finish with Team BOC’s Jason Richards
and Cam McConville coming in only 0.7599 seconds behind Tander. Jason also holds the fastest lap speed of 2m 9seconds for lap 61.

Third place was awarded to Garry Rogers Motorsport team of Lee Holdsworth and Michael Caruso who managed to stay in the race despite a spin out in the wet and a significant amount of push and shove.

Again the gap was very tight with Sprint Gas Racing’s Greg Murphy hot on their heels with
just 0.0042 seconds difference !!

It was perhaps a little frustrating for the Vodafone Team who were favourites to win this event
and take their sweep of the Mountain to 4 consecutive. That was not to be this time around though and the Champion team of Lowndes and Whincup suffered point losses for an altercation with FPR’s Steve Richardson and again towards the final 5 laps with Greg Murphy. This would have
contributed to the poor finish, but the main reason was a reported mechanical failure with the clutch during Whincups run in the final laps.

“When the pedal was pushed to the floor for the gear changes, there was no knowing if it was
going to come back up again ! ” Said Lowndes watching from the pits.

Most spectacular exit though, goes to Ford Performance Racing drivers Mark Winterbottom and
Steven Richards who’s car caught fire while Winterbottom was on track in Lap 50. It was discovered later that the battery had come loose and crashed into the exposed fuel housing. Once exposed, the fumes blended with the sparks produced by the battery sliding left and right to ignite
and burn the rear end.

But it was to be the day for Holden and Davison attributes their success to a speedy car, plus
the team manager’s decision to keep him on a wet track with slick tyres in pouring rain longer in order to get the fuel strategy right.

This required incredible driving skill and focus on behalf of Davison who was seen sliding even on a straight track like he was on roller skates.

Only 13 cars finished the 1,000 Km 6.5Hr race, which became a 20 lap sprint towards the end. Eight were officially classified as DNFs. Despite the rain, circa 180,000 fans attended the event!

Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 top 10 results

Garth Tander/Will Davison Commodore

Jason Richards/Cameron McConville Commodore

Lee Holdsworth/Michael Caruso Commodore

Greg Murphy/Mark Skaife Commodore

Craig Lowndes/Jamie Whincup Falcon

Jason Bargwanna/Mark Noske Commodore

Tim Slade/Paul Morris Commodore

Rick Kelly/Todd Kelly Commodore

David Besnard/Greg Ritter Commodore

Tony D’Alberto/Andrew Thompson Commodore

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