GROVE Racing has a plan to get Garth Tander fully sharpened up ahead of this year’s Supercars enduros – but it doesn’t involve any actual racing.
“He’ll drive one of my (Carrera) Cup cars on a test day, or probably two, at The Bend,” team owner Stephen Grove told V8 Sleuth.
With five-time Bathurst 1000 winner Tander having a reputation for being one of the hardest wheel-to-wheel racers of the modern era, Grove feels no need to enter him in a race meeting per se.
Rather, the priority is to simply get the 48-year-old a stack of high-speed laps to reacquaint himself.
Doing so at The Bend works particularly well given the South Australian circuit will this year host the 500km curtain-raiser to the Bathurst 1000.
Tander contested one Carrera Cup round in each of the past two seasons. Pic: Supplied
In addition to those Porsche outings, Tander will have the opportunity to take part in the all-in Supercars test day at Queensland Raceway on August 12.
That day, which follows the Ipswich Super440 event, is set to revolve around precious co-driver laps as well as finetuning driver change procedures and the like.
Tander, who is also a strategic advisor for Grove Racing and a leading Supercars broadcaster, will again pair up with Matt Payne in the #19 Penrite Mustang, while Carrera Cup regular Dale Wood will partner Kai Allen.
Fellow Great Race-winning veterans Craig Lowndes and Lee Holdsworth have also recently locked in pre-enduro miles, via cameos in the TA2 Muscle Car Series and GT World Challenge Australia respectively.
