Hot HSV Dealer Team looks for back-to-back wins at home
Press Release
Fresh from its clean-sweep victory at Symmons Plains last week, Holden Special Vehicles Dealer Team will be chasing back-to-back wins on its home turf at Phillip Island this weekend in a big finish to V8 Supercar season 2005.
The fast and sweeping 4.4km circuit overlooking Bass Strait is HSV DT’s test track – an advantage that takes on extra dimensions this year because the last time most teams turned a wheel there was in 2003 (the island circuit was temporarily dropped from the V8 Supercar Series in 2004).
According to HSV DT, the properties of the smooth Phillip Island surface have changed in the two years since the last race there, and only a handful of Victorian-based teams that test there will have that inside knowledge before Friday practice.
Symmons Plains winner Garth Tander and team-mate Rick Kelly, who was third in the Tassie round, spent all of last Thursday lapping the Phillip Island circuit in testing in readiness for this weekend’s BigPond Grand Finale.
Both of the drivers love driving at the circuit, in testing or racing. They rank it next to Mount Panorama on the thrill-per-minute scale, and say it requires full commitment to be fast through some of the most exciting corners in Australian motor sport.
In the last V8 round there, Tander finished just off the podium in fourth place in the 300km event in 2003. And back in 2002, Kelly came fifth in the second of two 150km races, and would have finished further up the scale in the Holden Young Lions Commodore except for a pit-stop mishap in Race 1.
The HSV Dealer Team has been determined to finish off the year on a high. Its strong efforts at both Indy and Symmons Plains have propelled it into fourth place on the Teams Championship table, with a possibility of finishing the season in third place with a top finish and a bit of luck at Phillip Island. That would signify a major turn-around for the team which started the season fresh out of luck before hitting its straps in the second half.
With a big new sponsor in the wings and hot form on the track, HSV Dealer Team is also looking to continue its success next year straight out of the blocks.
#15 Rick Kelly: “Apart from Bathurst, Phillip Island is the track I enjoy most. It is a track like no other in Australia - fast, flowing and has some great corners. It is also the track that we call home, as we test there. We have covered a lot of k’s down there this year, and we have done some pretty respectable times. We tested there last week and tried a few things for this weekend. We think we have a pretty good chance, but a lot of cars will be fast there, so it won’t be a pushover. But it will be fun.”
#16 Garth Tander: “Phillip Island is an awesome place – one of the best tracks we race at. It is fast and flowing and it requires commitment to go fast – a track that sorts the men from the boys. Because this is our test track, we should be a good chance. We haven’t raced there for a while, so other teams that don’t test there might take a little while to get up to speed. Interestingly, it is a bit different to when we used to race there, and understanding that could be a bit of an advantage.”.