Disappoinment after great promise

The Toll Holden Racing Team has had a disappointing end to this year’s Clipsal 500, although Mark Skaife leaves Adelaide tenth in series points.
Garth Tander appeared to be headed for a strong result early, the #1 Toll HRT Commodore charging through the field after starting 23rd race one.

But the second days story didn’t improve for the reigning V8 Supercar Champion, an incident with Ford driver James Courtney on lap 32 damaged his steering and required an unscheduled stop for repairs – Tander dropping 11 laps.

Skaife also looked headed for a strong result early, but he too needed an unscheduled stop after experiencing suspension/steering problems in this Commodore – Skaife losing five laps in the garage.

Both returned to the track to complete the race, Skaife finishing 17th, Tander two spots behind.

Mark Skaife said: “The car was comparatively good early, but we had a weird front suspension-cum-steering problem that raised its ugly head very quickly. It locked a wheel into turn 1 then again into turn 4. We did have some dramas with traffic early in the race and maybe that caused some damage. Then it tracked all over the road and didn’t turn the same left or right, so there’s something strange going on. The disappointing part is that we finished crippled but still finished tenth. We should have been way further up than that.”

Garth Tander’s veiw of the race was: “The way Courtney was going, I wasn’t surprised to see him involved in a huge shunt near the end – he was out of control all race. With our incident, I just clipped Stephen Johnson, and while I was waiting for him to gather it up Courtney pushed his way through and ripped the front corner off the car. Someone obviously forgot to tell him it was 78 laps, not seven or eight. It’s a disappointing way to start the year and finish the day after we came back from yesterday. The car was obviously very good in the early part, but we didn’t get the result.”