Tander: Sooner the better for new VE
Garth Tander driving his current VE Commodore
Leading V8 Supercars driver Garth Tander says the sooner he gets his new Toll Holden Racing Team Commodore VE the better.
The factory Holden team confirmed last week that it is close to completing the build of two new Commodores for Tander and Will Davison – the 12th and 13th Commodore VEs built by Walkinshaw Racing.
The cars are expected to debut at the Hidden Valley or Townsville rounds of the V8 Championship Series.
Tander, currently fourth in the V8 title, says getting the new car can’t come soon enough – even though there isn’t too much wrong with his current chassis.
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Toll HRT driver Garth Tander
“We’re certainly not going to rush them, but we’d like to be in them sooner rather than later,” he said.
“There’s nothing wrong with the cars we’ve got. We’ve made a lot of changes to the current cars since we’ve had them, so it’s more about making the package a bit nicer and just refining what we’ve learned over that period. Every time you build a new car, you try and make it better as far as weight distribution and driver seat position goes.
“We’ve obviously got Winton this weekend, and then there’s a bit of period of time after Winton where we could spend a fair bit of time with the cars.
“Potentially, we could have them for Darwin, but that would require everything working well as far as production schedules and all of that. That’s the current plan, but certainly we won’t be doing a week of all nighters to get the job done.”
The current HRT Commodore VEs have served the team well. Tander’s car debuted at the start of the 2008 Championship, while Davison’s car started life in the latter rounds of 2007.
Tander says that one of the major changes to the new car will see his seat positioned even closer to the middle of the car.
“From a safety point of view, I’ll be closer to the centre of the car, and I’ll be sitting lower as well. Being a tall bloke, being lower certainly will make the chassis better,” he said.
“These days, there’s no scope left in roll cage design, there’ll be no revolutionary designs anymore. It’s about maximising what we can do based on the current rules. The idea is more about having a user-friendly car for the mechanics.”
To view Speedcafe’s Friday afternoon’s initial news of the new Holden Racing Team Commodores, CLICK HERE