Asian Motor Sports

History does repeat - its official. For two years in succession the Toll Holden Racing Team has stolen victory from defeat in a head-to-head scrap with TeamVodafone at the L&H 500 at Phillip Island.

It was Garth Tander again that seized the dramatic last lap victory after roughly 499kms and three hours of edge of your seat sprint racing. He did it over Jamie Whincup last year and today Craig Lowndes.

The sweet victory was Tander’s second straight at the event and the first for his new team-mate Will Davison. They came home over the Lowndes/Whincup combination that ran out of tyre luck on the last lap. Ford Performance Racing’s Steven Richards and Mark Winterbottom were a great third.

“With five laps to go the boy said to just conserve fuel, we are going to get second,” Tander said.

“Then with three to go they said ‘go as hard as you can and see what happens’. Then Craig came kept coming back to me. I wondered if he was low on fuel as well. Then he started to slide around a bit and it was on.

“Amazing race. It was 500km absolutely flat out. I don’t think there was ever more than two seconds between the two cars the whole way round. We will absolutely take it. PI has been very kind to me in the past few years. I think we will go out and help the economy a little tonight.”

A nervous Davison watched it all unfold from the garage having done his job.

“We’d already had a chat and said ‘well second is not bad and we’ll use it as a great platform for Bathurst’. In this sport you just never know. I nearly thought second was it.”

“It was a bit of a shame,” he said. “We were one lap short really. Now I know how Jamie feels, it is gut wrenching.”

Whincup forgave Lowndes immediately.

“It was a full-on battle. We are going to put that down to that’s racing and get on with the job.”

Winterbottom and Richards are also well placed going into next month’s huge Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 with their continued form resurgence.

“It’s a great relief,” Richards said. “FPR have been working really hard and now we are pushing all the right buttons. It gives us really good direction going to Bathurst. We should be really pleased with that result.”

In an action packed race hearts stopped at one stage and McConville blasted Owen after crash.

Team BOC/WOW Racing’s Cameron McConville escaped what could have been a horrific accident when at around 280kmh he clipped the rear of Steve Owen on the main straight, sending him careering out of control through a massive gravel trap.

McConville was still travelling at extremely high speed when he went out the other end of the trap and still out of control as he crossed back over the track going backwards. With nothing he could do he was hurtled straight into oncoming traffic which only missed him by a matter a feet.

“It’s any wonder he struggles to get a regular drive,” McConville said.

“It shouldn’t happen… I was trying to pass him down the inside and he just kept on moving over; I had a run on him and there is just no point blocking like that on lap 20-odd of a 113-lap race. He must have just clipped my wheel as he continued to block… what do you do?

“It was just not worth arguing over that piece of territory with 90-odd laps to go; it was just stupid!”

It was also a tough day for former World Superbike Champion Troy who did not complete a single lap of the main race when his team-mate Dean Fiore broke an alternator belt on the warm-up lap.

“It’s a shame but these things happen though of course,” Bayliss said. “As soon as the car couldn’t come back under its own steam we couldn’t start the race. It just wasn’t meant to be today.”

Same for Kiwi Fabian Coulthard who blew an engine at high speed on lap five sending him on a merry ride as smoke poured out of the rear of his Wilson Security Racing Falcon.

“I was hard on the throttle pulling fourth gear and it all went wild,” Coulthard said. “There were flames pouring out everywhere. It’s a hard thing to swallow be we need to come back stronger and tougher for Bathurst.”

Lee Holdsworth was another early casualty in an incident similar to McConville except not as scary. He broke the front suspension along the way, ending the day for the form Garry Rogers Motorsport pair.

Conversely veteran pair Mark Skaife and Greg Murphy had a great day coming from 21st to 11th. Skaife was coming out of retirement for the two endurance events.

“It was great to get back behind the wheel,” Skaife said. “It was good to grab some match fitness for Bathurst, both Murph and I will be fired up for a big effort.”

The Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 is on at Mount Panorama on October 8-11.