Garth Tander (born 31 March 1977) is a multiple-championship winning Australian motor racing driver competing in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship's Enduro Cup, co-driving the No. 97 Holden ZB Commodore for Triple Eight Race Engineering. He was the 2007 series champion for the HSV Dealer Team and is a five-time winner in Australia's most prestigious motor race, the Bathurst 1000.
Tander also owns a motor racing team TanderSport.
Early career
As a child, Tander started racing go karts at Tiger Kart Club in WA, and by the time he was 17 years old, he had won 7 state titles and one Australian title.
Tander was Australian Formula Ford champion in 1997.
After failing to find a budget to run in Formula Holden in 1998, Tander was offered the seat in one of Garry Rogers Motorsport's V8 Supercars.
Professional career
Garry Rogers Motorsport
Tander finished second in the 2000 championship taking the championship to the last round where he was beaten by now five-time championship winner Mark Skaife. After winning the famous Bathurst 1000 race in 2000 with Jason Bargwanna, he found limited success.
Tander was the winner of the first Bathurst 24hr race driving a modified Holden Monaro 427C running a 7.0L (427cui) motor rather than the 5.7L Gen III that the road car runs. He co-drove this race with Steven Richards, Cameron McConville and Nathan Pretty while driving for V8 Supercar team boss Garry Rogers Motorsport. Tander was widely tipped to drive the Monaro for GRM in the Australian Nations Cup Championship in 2003 but concentrated instead on V8 Supercars with the drive going to Nathan Pretty. In the 2003 Bathurst 24 Hour Tander, again driving the very same Monaro from 2002 with the same co-drivers in the same team, came second to the team's second Monaro driven by Peter Brock, Greg Murphy, Jason Bright and Todd Kelly. Driving at the end, Tander finished only 0.2 seconds behind Greg Murphy with Tander setting the race's fastest lap on lap 526, the second last of the race. The GRM Monaro's led the race throughout and finished 13 laps ahead of the third place Porsche 911 GT3 RC.
In 2004 Tander remained at Garry Rogers Motorsport but it was announced in the early part of the season that he would not be returning to the team in 2005. His season started poorly at Adelaide with a DNF in Race 1 and he was unable to even start Race 2. The rest of the year improved slightly for Garth with his stand out results being 4th overall for the Round at Barbagallo and Sandown. He ended the year 11th in the Championship. In November 2004 it was announced that Garth would move to the HSV Dealer Team on a 3-year deal starting in 2005.
HSV Dealer Team
In 2005 he moved to a newly renamed team, the HSV Dealer Team (formerly K-Mart Racing Team) partnered with dual Bathurst winner Rick Kelly.
Tander was leading the V8 Supercar championship in 2006 after six rounds, but a disastrous round in Oran Park lost him the championship lead. The endurance races following were no better. Tander participated in a highly controversial driver swap with the Holden Racing Team which involved Todd Kelly coming to the HSV Dealer Team. Garth and co-driver Mark Skaife dominated the entire Sandown round until a broken steering problem destroyed the almost certain victory. At the next round at Bathurst, the car's clutch failed off the line and was hit from the rear by another car before the second turn on lap one. After a crushing end to his Bathurst 1000 campaign, Tander was visibly upset, probably realising that his run at the V8 Supercar title was all but over. The car had been near on fastest in every practice and qualifying session prior to the race on the Sunday.
For the second year in a row Tander won the Symmons Plains round, winning two of the three races, even with engine troubles resulting in the car running on seven cylinders. During race one, someone rear-ended him from first to finish fourth with a few laps to go.