Garth Tander (Toll HSV Dealer Team) fulfilled a racing ambition this weekend to win the second round at Perth’s Barbagallo racetrack. Tander is a Western Australian, so to take out not only the round win, but to do it in such a convincing way (taking pole position and winning all three races) was testament not only to his talent as a driver but the strength of the VE Commodore teams.

Tander, who celebrated the victory with a rooftop salute to the parochial crowd, commented after the race: “It’s right up there with winning Bathurst -- there's no doubt about that”.

Whilst Tander’s victory was headline news all over the V8 radar, some commentators (myself included) were happy to see the long-time suffering Ford team of Dick Johnson-Jim Bean Racing (DJR) finally show the promise of old with a deserved fourh and fifth place from drivers Steven Johnson and Will Davison. Both men fought hard over the whole weekend to beat Ford favourite Craig Lowndes in his 888/Team Vodafone Falcon, who was placed sixth for the round.

Another impressive drive came from Lee Holdsworthy, from the Valvoline Cummins Team. Holdsworthy and the team took a calculated risk in the second qualifying session by putting on fresh ‘green tyres’ to place him in the final qualifying shoot-out. He was able to maintain his position during the three races to come out with a solid ninth for the round.

Lowndes had an indifferent race meet, qualifying in fourth. Ford’s other golden boy, James Courtney in the Jeld-Wen Falcon, had a horror weekend with a huge crash in qualifying and then engine and component failures ruining his chance to consolidate his first-round success and placing 16th for the round.

Also unlucky was Jason Bright in the Britek Falcon. He did not even get to start racing due to a freaky accident involving Jason Richards (Tasman Motorsport) during qualifying. This saw the team pack the car into the transporter to Melbourne to be repaired for the next round in New Zealand.

Mark Skaife (Holden Racing Team) had a strong weekend, and was the only driver (other than Tander’s team mate and the round's second-placed driver Rick Kelly) to push Tander to the end. In the final laps of the third race, Skaife was relentless in his chase. Given a few more laps it would have been interesting to see if he could have overtaken Tander to ruin his clean sweep.

Rick Kelly, the 2006 champion, seemed to travel under the radar, exaggerated by Tander’s domination. However, by the Sunday afternoon he was in second place for the round with another consistent display.

This weekend also saw V8 Supercar and Ford stalwart John Bowe (JB) in the Glenford Racing Falcon, overtake the late great Peter Brock by starting in his 213th series round. Fittingly, JB also won his first points for the year, by coming in 21st for the round. I have said in earlier articles that JB would find it tough in his final year, but he drove well this weekend and was unluckily caught up in incidents which pushed him back in the pack. His three points would have to be the hardest fought in his career.

The final top ten placings for the weekend where: 1. Garth Tander (Toll HSV Dealer Team), 2. Rick Kelly (Toll HSV Dealer Team), 3. Mark Skaife (Holden Racing Team), 4. Steven Johnson (Jim Beam Racing), 5. Will Davison (Jim Beam Racing), 6. Craig Lowndes (Team Vodafone), 7. Mark Winterbottom (Ford Performance Racing), 8. Greg Murphy (Tasman Motorsport), 9. Lee Holdsworth (Valvoline Cummins Race Team), 10. Todd Kelly (Holden Racing Team).

The next round is a fly-away in New Zealand, so log on to http://davidswift.wordpress.com for more news and opinion.

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