Saturday Sleuthing: Restoring The 2009 Bathurst Winner

Today our V8 Sleuth Aaron Noonan slots back into gear and goes full throttle with ‘Saturday Sleuthing’ on the V8 Supercars official website for the 2013 season.

It’s proven to be a popular regular feature of the v8supercars.com.au site over the last two years covering the histories of some of the great cars from recent (and some not so recent!) times.

Have a particular car you’d like to read about? An observation or point you’d like to make? Or have some intel or information on an old car you think he may find helpful?

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Now, to today’s first Sleuthing story of the year and we’re happy to report a project has kicked off that will see a recent Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 winner restored to its former glory.

The 2009 race-winning #2 Holden Racing Team Commodore VE driven by Garth Tander and Will Davison to victory nearly four years ago (chassis WR 006) has sat idle at Walkinshaw Racing since it was last raced in 2011 – until now.

Many V8 Sleuth readers will be familiar with the name John Anderson. The Queenslander owns the restored Greg Murphy ‘Lap of the Gods’ Kmart Commodore VY and also the restored original HRT Commodore VT among a few other significant cars in his collection.

He’s purchased the 2009 Bathurst winner from Walkinshaw Racing and has had Rick Wyatt (ex-HRT chief of new car builds who put in massive work on the Kmart car restoration) strip to back to a bare chassis.

The next task is for the car to be bead blasted before the rebuild begins. The team at Walkinshaw Racing is in the middle of tracking down all of the correctly numbered components from the car to ensure it’s as authentically restored as possible to how it ran at Bathurst in 2009.

Whether it be uprights, engine and associated components or bell housings, they are on the mission to get all of the right gear – or as much of it as humanly possible - back in the car that it carried on that special day at Bathurst.

Anderson told the V8 Sleuth this week that the level of attention to detail for this restoration will follow the standard set by the work on the 2003 Kmart Bathurst winning car.

“Adam (Laws) at Walkinshaw Racing contacted me about the painting just to find out how far I wanted to go,” Anderson told us.

“He thought I might have wanted the interior and chassis left as is to show actual wear and tear. But the bar has been set so high now with the Kmart car restoration, that really unless we have new paint throughout it will truly not do the car justice.

“Rick (Wyatt) is on the job finding most of the original components and as usual his attention for detail is amazing. Another top quality restoration is in progress!”

The 2009 Bathurst winner’s history dates back to its debut in the final round of the 2007 V8 Supercar Championship Series at Phillip Island.

The sixth VE Commodore built by Walkinshaw Racing, it was the first of the ‘second generation’ of VEs designed by the team featuring a smart ECU, minimal in-car instrumentation and minimal actual parts in the cockpit.

A Pi Research module replaced the console, a whole new transmission tunnel and new roll cage design was also part of the re-design over the previous five chassis, while the driver was also moved slightly further inboard compared to the previous cars.

Mark Skaife gave WR 006 its racing debut at Phillip Island in 2007 carrying the #200 in deference to the five-time champ making his 200th Australian Touring Car Championship/V8 Supercars Championship round start.

Skaife retained the car in 2008 and raced it as the #2 Commodore in what turned out to be his final season full-time in V8 Supercars – and with the Holden Racing Team - with Glenn Seton and Craig Baird piloting the car in the endurance races at Phillip Island and Bathurst and Skaife having his final start in it at Oran Park.

It became Will Davison’s #22 car when he joined HRT for 2009 and he claimed wins in it at Sandown and Queensland Raceway before it was re-numbered #2 and claimed a last lap victory at the Phillip Island 500 with Garth Tander and Davison claiming success.

Tander then put it on pole at Bathurst (his second in successive years), Davison led away in the early stages and they went on to win the race.

Davison ended up finishing second in the 2009 championship to Jamie Whincup in the car and he retained it for the first part of 2010, though it would prove to be a difficult season for both team and driver.

Two new cars came on-stream at Hidden Valley so this car reverted to spare status, though it was pressed back into action on the Gold Coast for Davison and Ryan Briscoe to drive after Davison’s late race wall-banging accident on the Mountain at Bathurst.

Nick Percat then used it in the final two rounds of the Fujitsu Series at Sandown and Sydney before running it as the #222 Coates Hire car in the 2011 series, in which he won the first round in Adelaide but finished seventh in the points overall.

Percat moved into a newer chassis last year, so this car has sat at Walkinshaw Racing in its 2011 Coates Hire colours before the restoration project began recently.

We’ll bring you further details on how things are progressing with the restoration of this recent Bathurst winner during the year.

To visit the V8 Sleuth’s website: www.v8sleuth.com.au