When Tander first drove a Ford

Between 1998 and 2022, Garth Tander was Holden through and through — but his first Supercars laps came in a Falcon.

The leading story of the off-season so far is Tander’s switch from Triple Eight to Grove Racing.

In 2023, Tander — who won the Great Race in October for a fifth time — will race a Ford for the first time in Supercars.

The 2007 champion’s racing career has often included Fords — notably, he won the 1997 national Formula Ford title.

That year, Tander tested an ex-Glenn Seton Racing Falcon — chassis GSR4.

Then aged 20, Tander first drove a Supercar after that year's Barbagallo round of the championship.

There, Western Australian privateer Allan McCarthy had raced the car under Claude Giorgi.

Tander drove the Seton Falcon in preparation for an upcoming test at Mallala — also in a Ford, in one of Dick Johnson's Shell Falcons.

The McCarthy Falcon Pic: AN1 Images

To prepare for his big test with DJR, Tander took the opportunity to learn the ropes in the West Coast Racing Falcon in a low-pressure environment.

"The reason I drove that car was that we knew Allan McCarthy who had been driving it,” Tander told V8 Sleuth in 2014.

"He teed it up for us. But that was it really, I only did about 10 laps of Barbagallo to get my head around it before the DJR test.

"I wasn't totally at sea from memory. I was only a few seconds off Allan's pace from memory by the end of it.

"I might have done three, five lap runs in it, so it wasn't a mega test. I can't remember a huge amount about it.”

Sadly, GSR4 was written off at a Lakeside test in early 1999 with Charles Ryman behind the wheel.

As for Tander’s DJR test at Mallala, rain cut the future Holden hero’s running to approximately 10 laps.

The laps still meant a great deal to Tander’s late father Dirk, given the Tanders were a Ford family.

Tander later sealed the Formula Ford title at Oran Park — a moment which set up his first Holden running.

Tander was a front-runner by 2000 Pic: AN1 Images

He was approached by then Holden Racing Team boss Jeff Grech, who offered him running in a Holden Young Lions Commodore.

Tander tested the car at Calder Park with the likes of Formula Holden rivals Jason Bright and Jason Bargwanna, and Scott Dixon.

After failing to find a budget to run in Formula Holden in 1998, Tander was offered a Garry Rogers Motorsport seat.

He finished 14th overall in 1998, and improved to fifth in 1999 — winning at Calder Park 1999 aged just 22 years, 3 months, 25 days.

In 2000, Tander and Bargwanna combined to win Bathurst, with the former moving into the Walkinshaw fold in 2005.

Tander has yet to be confirmed alongside either David Reynolds or Matt Payne for the 2023 enduros.

The 45-year-old is also set to mentor rookie Payne, with son Sebastian also recruited by the Grove Junior Team.

The 2023 Repco Supercars Championship will commence in Newcastle next March.

Tickets are on sale on Supercars.com and Ticketek.com.