Tander: Why Finals could go from foe to friend for Feeney

It would've taken a brave person to suggest that The Finals could help Broc Feeney two months ago.

Romping home to an emphatic Repco Sprint Cup win, and punching his Golden Ticket to The Finals in the process, he is undoubtedly the favourite to claim his maiden Repco Supercars Championship on the streets of Adelaide.

With a 345 point gap over Matt Payne after Ipswich, many would've claimed he had one hand on the championship trophy in a regular season, given there are 300 points on the line every weekend.

However, this is no regular season. And regardless of Finals being in play, The Bend delivered the first major hiccup of Feeney's title challenge.

When refuelling dramas scuppered any chance of any sort of result for the #88 at The Bend, Feeney's lead was more than halved, now sitting at 158 points.

However dominant Feeney's season has been, there is now a chance that he could lose the points lead (and the top seeding in Finals) with another difficult run at Bathurst. As history shows, Mount Panorama has thrown just about all it can at the 22-year-old.

After finishing 10th on debut in 2020, he crashed out late in 2021 whilst running in the top 10, and then watched co-driver Jamie Whincup go spinning up Mountain Straight mere seconds into the 2022 Great Race.

Perhaps most heartbreaking was 2023, when a gear shifter failure robbed him of a certain podium in the final hour, whilst he went within two seconds of claiming victory last year.

Will the Mountain be kind in 2025?

Speaking on the Drivers Only podcast, five-time Bathurst winner and 2007 Supercars champion Garth Tander believes that the script of Feeney's season could completely change if Bathurst doesn't fall his way.

"The Finals aspect with Broc hasn't kicked in yet, because obviously we're not there yet," said Tander.

"He's won the Sprint Cup and he's already in, but if this was a regular championship season, and Broc had a bad result at The Bend, which has happened in the past.

"So that could happen, and all of a sudden Broc Feeney loves The Finals, because it's a complete reset, and then he's going again.

"So right now you could say this could happen, that could happen, this could happen, because of all the work that's happened prior, but in reality, we could go to Bathurst, Broc could have another bad day.

"Whatever could happen, Bathurst being Bathurst, and all of a sudden The Finals could be his friend, and he's back in the game, and he's back on an even keel, because the points don't matter anymore."

An all too familiar feeling

Tander knows all too well what it's like to have a title challenge fall apart at the enduros.

For three straight seasons spanning his TWR stint with both the HSV Dealer Team and Holden Racing Team from 2006-08, the West Australian faced all manner of problems, especially at Bathurst.

After dominating the preliminaries in 2006, including Mark Skaife claiming pole in the Top Ten Shootout, the clutch failed off the line, with Skaife then clobbered into retirement by an unsighted Jack Perkins not even a kilometre into the race.

The crumpled black bonnet on the #2 HRT Commodore - a tribute to the late Peter Brock - became one of the most iconic Bathurst images as commentator Leigh Diffey exclaimed: "Skaife is in the wall, Skaife's day is done."

Tander returned to HSV for 2007, however brake dramas saw co-driver Rick Kelly sent for a wild ride through The Chase, nearly spearing into Craig Lowndes in the process. Only a late-season blitz saw Tander steal the title by two points in the final race of the year.

In 2008, Tander transferred full-time to the flagship HRT, and entering the enduros was leading the championship, a lead which was enhanced with a Phillip Island 500 win alongside Skaife.

However, demons from two years past reared their ugly head at Bathurst, when Tander stalled from pole, tumbling right down to the back of the field, though lucky not to get collected.

When Skaife slammed into the wall at Forrest's Elbow, Tander was sent tumbling from the top of the standings to third, where he would ultimately remain to the end of the season.

Whilst it's easy to get bogged down in what ifs over what might've happened in season's past if The Finals system was in place, it's an opportunity that Tander would've wanted through his illustrious career: "I've been leading the championship going into Sandown and Bathurst, and had a bad Sandown and a DNF at Bathurst. Championship over, that's it. Game over.

"There was no Finals then, and I would've loved to have Finals, because I would've been in The Finals and I would've had another crack."