{"id":946911,"date":"2026-10-30T23:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T23:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/946911\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T23:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T23:10:12","slug":"garth-tander-reflects-on-rick-kelly-craig-lowndes-2006-supercars-phillip-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/946911\/","title":{"rendered":"Garth Tander reflects on Rick Kelly Craig Lowndes 2006 Supercars Phillip Island"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-8-Garth-Tander\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GARTH Tander<\/a> has expressed his pride in how Rick Kelly handled the fallout from one of Supercars\u2019 most controversial championship deciders, 20 years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A tense 2006 title fight between Kelly (HSV Dealer Team) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-6-Craig-Lowndes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Craig Lowndes<\/a> (Triple Eight) came down to the last race at the last round, Phillip Island.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It boiled over after the pair made contact, with Kelly ultimately emerging victorious.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In his autobiography The Finish Line, Tander describes his three seasons alongside the hard-working Kelly as \u201cprobably the most fruitful teammate relationship I ever had \u2013 by a long margin\u201d and stresses there was no malice in the infamous Kelly\/Lowndes clash.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/the-finish-line-garth-tander-autobiography-book?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=buy-button&amp;utm_content=buy-button\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1793401811_151_tander-finish-line.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere was a whole heap of crap flying around in the wake of the controversial collision between Rick and Craig. Rick couldn\u2019t enjoy his achievement with the circus that played out around it,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cTriple Eight protested post-race that Rick\u2019s penalty for the contact \u2013 a pitlane drive-through penalty \u2013 was insufficient. It was dismissed the day after.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI was immensely proud of how he conducted himself in that period.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI was excited for him to be the champion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2006-Deeley-Phillip-Island-Kelly-Tander-2-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-269398\"  \/>Pic: an1images.com \/ Justin Deeley<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The triumph also reaffirmed to Tander that he himself had made the right call in leaving <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-354-Garry-Rogers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Garry Rogers<\/a> Motorsport for the HSV Dealer Team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBy the end of 2006 things were clear to me,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019d gone to the right place at the right time to set myself up for success.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tander went on to win the championship the following year in another Phillip Island thriller.<\/p>\n<p>Supercars Finals &amp; Team Orders | The Undercut<\/p>\n<p>THE Supercars Finals have landed for 2026, leaving plenty to unpack in this week\u2019s episode of The Undercut!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GARTH Tander has expressed his pride in how Rick Kelly handled the fallout from one of Supercars\u2019 most&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":946912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-946911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=946911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/946912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}