Saturday Sleuthing: The First Ipswich V8 Winner

Queensland Raceway first appeared on the V8 Supercars Championship calendar in July 1999 hosting a three-race sprint round won by Garth Tander for Garry Rogers Motorsport.

But have you stopped to consider that Tander actually didn't win on that day and that he wasn't driving a GRM-built Commodore?

Tander won that inaugural round without winning any of the three sprint races, his combined points tally for the day enough to win by just two points over Craig Lowndes (who won Race 2 for the Holden Racing Team) and Jason Bright (Stone Brothers Falcon AU).

He scored a second, third and second in the sprint races to claim the first winner's trophy at the circuit that has since become known to many as the 'paperclip' given its design.

And while Tander was driving a Valvoline/Cummins Commodore for GRM on that day, it wasn't one that the team itself had built - instead it actually started life with some impressive history at HRT.

In fact, the car that won the very first Queensland Raceway V8 Supercars Championship round started its life four seasons earlier and already had a championship crown to its name!

Built new in 1995 and debuted by Tomas Mezera at Phillip Island (chassis 031), the car was driven by Mezera that year as the very first all-new VR Commodore (rather than converted VP) model in the team's fleet.

Mezera joined Peter Brock for the Sandown and Bathurst endurance races in a new car, so his regular #015 car was taken over by two young bucks in Craig Lowndes and Greg Murphy.

'The Kid' Lowndes put it on pole for both the Sandown 500 and Tooheys 1000 at Bathurst however it failed to score a result and, when Lowndes replaced Mezera full-time at HRT the following season it became Craig's new full-time ride.

It was the car in which Lowndes made a sparkling Australian Touring Car Championship debut at Eastern Creek in 1996, claiming the overall round win in his first actual championship round.

He used it for many of the rounds in his maiden championship-winning season but was lucky to walk away from a rather large crash at Phillip Island in round four that also involved John Bowe.

Replaced by a newer car for the endurance races, Lowndes' car returned to action at the end of that season in Murphy's hands for the non-championship Mobil Sprint Series races in his native New Zealand.

The soon-to-be Lowndes replacement won the series overall held across Pukekohe and the streets of Wellington and took over Craig's place in the team given he was off to Europe to race open wheelers.

Murphy also took over the newer car in which he and Lowndes had used to win Sandown and Bathurst in '96 but the 'old faithful' it had replaced would be called up to action once more after Murphy had a tyre let go at Phillip Island and he ploughed into an earth bank.

The ex-Mezera and Lowndes '031' Commodore was called back into service and Murphy drove it for the remainder of the Shell Australian Touring Car Championship prior to another new car being built for he and Lowndes to drive in the endurance races.

At this point the now-three-year old car was sold to Garry Rogers Motorsport and became Jason Bargwanna's #35 Valvoline car in 1998.

It was still a competitive car as 'Bargs' won his first V8 Supercar race in it at Calder that season (with Lowndes right on his bumper bar!) before finishing third at Bathurst with Jim Richards as co-driver.

Bargwanna moved into the new GRM-built VT model Commodore for 1999, handballing the ex-HRT VS model to Tander who was moving into his first full-time season after replacing Steve Richards partway through '98.

In Tander's hands the car finished on the podium at Eastern Creek (third), Hidden Valley (second), Queensland Raceway (victory) and Calder (second with a race win in the final of the day) before a second new model VT was ready for him to race at Winton.

Paul Morris' team bought the VS for its arrival in V8 Supercars in 2000 and it remained as a spare car while he used a newer ex-HRT Commodore in Big Kev yellow colours.

This car was wheeled back out for the Calder round after the other car was destroyed in the massive start line accident at Oran Park - it was then used up until the arrival of an ex-HRT VT for the team in time for the Queensland 500.

Owen Kelly and Aaron McGill ran the HRT 031 chassis as the #67 Big Kev Commodore at Bathurst though retired very early from what would turn out to be its last race start.

It was sold to expat Kiwi Steve Andrew in Queensland who has placed it back into Lowndes 1996 HRT colours and even secured the original engine (from Bathurst 1995 and the 1996 championship win) and gearbox it ran 'back in the day'.

But while its HRT history and success is undoubted, it also holds a very special place in the history books of V8 Supercar racing given its success in the inaugural round held at Queensland Raceway.

Perhaps it's also appropriate that both Tander and Lowndes, who both piloted the car at various stages, also remain the only two drivers in history to have competed in each and every V8SC round held at Queensland Raceway since that first one in 1999.

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