{"id":587761,"date":"2026-09-02T08:40:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T08:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/587761\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T08:40:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T08:40:21","slug":"supercars-news-garth-tander-wouldnt-have-retired-if-not-for-bathurst-1000-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/587761\/","title":{"rendered":"Supercars news: Garth Tander wouldn\u2019t have retired if not for Bathurst 1000 win"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Tander\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGarth Tander (right) celebrates winning the 2025 Bathurst 1000 with Grove Racing teammate Matt Payne. Image: Mark Horsburgh<\/p>\n

Tander retired from co-driving<\/a> in the weeks after his sixth success at Mount Panorama<\/a>, 25 years after his first triumph in 2000.<\/p>\n

There was an air of expectation coming into last year\u2019s Great Race that Tander may call time on his illustrious career.<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking at the launch of this year\u2019s Bathurst 1000, the Supercars champion said that had he not won the 2025 edition, he would have kept racing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to last year\u2019s Bathurst with the view that it might be my last race,\u201d said Tander.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we didn\u2019t win, I would have been racing this year. It\u2019s that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tander was cruelly denied a farewell from full-time driver when Garry Rogers Motorsport elected to field James Golding and Richie Stanaway in 2019.<\/p>\n

Tander duly joined Triple Eight and won the Bathurst 1000 twice as a co-driver with Shane van Gisbergen before joining Grove Racing in 2023 \u2013 first with David Reynolds and then Payne.<\/p>\n

In the hour after the 2025 Bathurst 1000, Tander said he came close to a mic-drop moment in the press conference after the race, but elected to announce his decision weeks later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I finished my 21 years of full-time driving, it wasn\u2019t my decision. The decision was made for me, and that didn\u2019t sit well,\u201d said Tander.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo having the opportunity to finish on a high at the highest of highs at Mount Panorama, that was after the fact an easy decision to make.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I went to the race last year with a view that this may be my last race, so I enjoyed every aspect of it \u2013 the autograph sessions, the sponsor appearances, every session on track.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had my kids there with me, my partner with me, and just enjoyed every single moment as though it could be the last.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then, when we were fortunate enough to have success, I\u2019m like, yeah, that\u2019s pretty easy. It was a mic drop.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very, very close to doing it in the press conference after the race on the Sunday night, but I wanted to the team to enjoy the moment that was the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an easy decision to make there and I\u2019m still very, very happy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jess<\/p>\n

Jess Yates, Mark Skaife and Garth Tander on the broadcast in 2025. Image: InSyde Media<\/p>\n

Tander has started the Bathurst 1000 every year since his debut in 1998.<\/p>\n

At this year\u2019s Great Race, he will switch the cockpit for the commentary box.<\/p>\n

Tander will be heavily relied on with Craig Lowndes, Mark Winterbottom and James Courtney all doing driving duties. The line-up will be bolstered by Greg Murphy, however<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t wait. I honestly cannot wait,\u201d said Tander.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time in my broadcasting career, I\u2019ve been fortunate enough to be part of the Supercars broadcasting crew for the last five or six years, but I\u2019ve always been racing at the same time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never done TV at Bathurst. So I\u2019m really looking forward to that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know how kind and how cruel the race can be and heard Matt (Payne) talking about how the Mountain often chooses the winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t know what stage of the week that you will get chosen. We\u2019ll get to commemorate the passing of Peter Brock this year, 20 years since he passed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2006, the very first race after Peter\u2019s passing, Mark Skaife and I were on the front row of the grid, unbackable favourites. The thing was an absolute rocket ship.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the fastest car that I\u2019d ever had at Bathurst at that point, and we didn\u2019t even get 100 metres into the race and it was over and done. The clutch fried and our race was over \u2013 but the Mountain chose Peter Brock\u2019s protege in Craig Lowndes to win that race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t wait to find out what this year\u2019s story is going to be, I can\u2019t wait to help tell that story with the rest of the broadcast crew, and I can\u2019t wait to share with the people watching at home how they\u2019re doing it, why they\u2019re doing it, when they\u2019re doing it, and why it\u2019s important that they\u2019re doing it right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving the experience of just jumped out of the car last year and now bringing that into broadcast, I think I can add a bit of value there with the rest of the crew and I can\u2019t wait.<\/p>\n

\u201cThursday Practice 1 might be a little bit nervous for me because usually I\u2019m driving out of pit lane. I haven\u2019t missed driving a race car this year, but I may do at Bathurst.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bathurst 1000 takes place on October 8-11 at Mount Panorama.<\/p>\n

2026 Bathurst 1000 event schedule released<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Garth Tander (right) celebrates winning the 2025 Bathurst 1000 with Grove Racing teammate Matt Payne. Image: Mark Horsburgh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[28871,111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-587761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-garth-tander","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}