Having become one of Holden’s main strike weapons in the V8 Supercar Championship Series in recent years, Garth Tander is entering his third season with the Toll Holden Racing Team – and is eager to reclaim the V8 Supercar crown he seized as champion in 2007.

After two years of finishing third in the championship and being forced to watch as former GRM team-mate Jamie Whincup took the crown both times, Tander is fired up and ready to return to action in the #2 Toll HRT Commodore VE.

His 2009 season was simply brilliant. After a slow start to the year, Tander outscored all other drivers in the second half of the year and teamed with new partner Will Davison to claim the Phillip Island/Bathurst endurance double in addition to Tander’s four other race wins at Symmons Plains, Sandown, the Gold Coast and Sydney.

Since joining the Toll Holden Racing Team in 2008, Tander has adjusted well to life in the spotlight in the sport’s most watched squad.

After several seasons spent in HRT’s lower-profile sister team, the HSV Dealer Team, Tander stepped up to the big time alongside Mark Skaife and immediately delivered. He has also now formed a solid partnership with new team-mate Davison.

Tander has trodden a well-worn path to V8 Supercar stardom via early success in karts and Formula Ford single-seaters. Several WA state titles and a national kart title led to Formula Ford school, then in 1995 to victory in only the fourth race he contested, and in 1997 he finally collected the Australian Formula Ford Championship.

A planned progression in 1998 to Formula Holden fell over for lack of sponsorship, but a paid drive in V8 Supercars opened up at the last minute at Garry Rogers Motorsport. A tough initiation followed as Tander struggled to make the transition from 100hp open-wheelers to 600hp touring sedans, but by 1999 his talent began to shine through and in 2000 he won several rounds, including the Bathurst 1000, in a title fight with Skaife that went down to the final round that saw Tander finish runner-up.

The following four seasons were plagued with inconsistent results and in 2005 Tander moved to the HSV Dealer Team, a re-birthed version of the former Kmart Racing Team. His watershed moment came in 2005 in the Darwin heat when he won his first race since Bathurst in 2000, he went on to clean-sweep the Symmons Plains round and finish second at the Phillip Island finale.

It was to be the beginning of a purple patch for the team as Tander and teammate Rick Kelly swooped into strong contention in 2006, Tander’s strong claims on his first championship only wrecked when he was swapped into the HRT car – ironically to partner his future teammate Skaife – which failed to finish at either of the Sandown or Bathurst enduro races. Kelly forged on to win the championship, only strengthening Tander’s resolve to better his younger teammate.

In 2007 he made good on that promise, announcing his intentions in Round 2 with a clean sweep at his home