All work and no play for Tander

It might be half a world away but a weekend trip to the Kingdom of Bahrain is anything but a holiday for Toll Holden Racing Team star Garth Tander, who is locked in an intense three-way battle for the 2008 V8 Supercar Championship with just three rounds to go.
Tander, the defending series champion, will hit the track conceding 106 points to leader Jamie Whincup and 31 points to Mark Winterbottom.

Tander said he expected both his rivals to be in top form after the three raced nose-to-tail throughout three races in their last outing, at Indy.

“As far as the championship goes, every weekend we go to is critical now,” Tander said. “Winterbottom was quick last year (in Bahrain) in the first two races, no doubt they found something there last year. But Winterbottom was quick at Indy last year, and didn’t repeat that this year. They would be confident going there, and Triple Eight (Whincup and Craig Lowndes) will be confident because they had good speed last year after a fairly disastrous first race. All of us will be quite quick, I expect.”

Tander said the third annual pilgrimage to the Middle East might help to resolve a few engineering issues, after teams were confronted by significantly different conditions in each of the first two visits.

“The sand’s not too bad, we haven’t really noticed it much so far, but the surface was really different from the first year to the second year,” he said. “So how it performs now in the third year is probably a result of the way it’s weathered in the three years since we’ve been going there. The conditions over there are quite harsh and the way the track weathers through the year would be very different to the tracks we race on in Australia.”

Tander’s team-mate, Mark Skaife, has had a tumultuous past few weeks during which he announced his intention to retire at the end of the 2008 season as the most successful driver in the history of the sport.

Skaife said he was relieved to put the decision and announcement behind him. “After all the speculation of the past few months and all the sort of things that go with that in terms of how you’re feeling about it, it’s a weight off my shoulders. I just want to go to Bahrain and enjoy it,” he said.

The five-time series and Bathurst champion said the trip to Bahrain was well-timed, given the low-key nature of the off-track activities there. “With all the hype and controversy and making the announcement, going to Bahrain, where I won’t be as busy and it won’t be as hectic, is a good thing,” Skaife said.

“I can go there and enjoy the weekend and also concentrate on the racing. I’m looking forward to getting there and getting my head down and tweaking the car and trying to get the best from what we’ve got.”

Tander said he, too, will relish being able to focus on winning the championship rather than the speculation surrounding his team-mate’s plans. “We won’t be going to press conference now with people digging to find out what Mark’s future is,” he said.

“But it probably has given the team a bit more a of direction as to where they’re headed in the future, and what the make-up of the team will be in terms of one piece of the jigsaw being announced.

“There’s also a bit of a hop in the step of the team at the moment, because everyone’s keen to do well championship-wise and also to do a good job for Mark so that he finishes his career on a high as well.”