Motorsport: Turbo charged passion fuels Holden

Garth Tander feels privileged to drive for the Holden Racing Team. Photo / Mark Horsburgh

Holden's factory Toll Holden Racing Team, who celebrated their 21st birthday in February, evoke great passion from myriad fans.

In sporting teams, HRT are a great success, having come a long way from a humbling first race start in February 1990 at Sydney's now defunct Amaroo Park Raceway where then-team manager and driver Win Percy finished 14th after starting 16th.

Percy scored their first podium at Lakeside a few months later before the first win came at Mt Panorama in September that year, he and Allan Grice causing an upset when they defeated a fleet of Ford's fancied turbocharged Sierra RS500s in their home-grown Commodore V8 to win the Bathurst 1000.

The HRT legacy was born. However, it was three years before they won another race when former 500cc motorcycle world champion Wayne Gardner drove his Commodore to a win at the non-championship Australian Grand Prix event in Adelaide.

HRT's first actual Australian Touring Car Championship race win came at the hands of the late Peter Brock at Eastern Creek in Sydney in 1994.

Success in the early years wasn't easy to come by, but when rookie Craig Lowndes joined Brock in the factory line-up everything clicked for HRT - Lowndes sweeping the 1996 season, winning his and HRT's first championship, then joining rising Kiwi star Greg Murphy to take out the season's two enduros, the Sandown 500 and Bathurst.

HRT have gone on to record more championships and race wins than any other team in Australian Touring Car/V8 Supercar history. The successes include six Bathurst 1000 victories (1990, '96, 2001,'02, '05, '09) and six driver's titles (1996, '98, '99, 2000, '01, '02).

Though they haven't won a driver's championship for almost a decade, HRT remain the sport's most popular team, reflected in merchandise sales, with supporters in Australia and New Zealand snapping up well over $10 million worth a year, a sea of "team Red" fans common sights at events each side of the Tasman.

HRT's heritage is not lost on their stars of today, Garth Tander, who joined HRT in 2008, and reigning V8 Supercar champion James Courtney, who jumped from Ford to the Holden factory squad just days after securing last year's V8 crown.

"Driving for the Toll Holden Racing Team is a great honour and privilege," Tander said.

On signing, Courtney said: "It has also been the most successful V8 Supercar team over the past 21 years, it has an incredible history, and I was excited and honoured to be able to join it."

Now on 198 race wins, the team could win No200 in Hamilton - not an impossible feat, as Tander has had success on the street circuit.