Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
I've been pretty vocal from day one that there's been differences spoken out on my podcast.
It was cool to have both the lucky dogs up there though, right? And I thought we might see if the podcast is still going next week actually after this one.
Welcome to episode 31 of the Lucky Dogs podcast. We've got a real special guest with us today, Garth Tender. So welcome.
Thank you. I was looking for the special guest. You're very special.
I'm it, am I? Oh, thank you. No, thanks for having me. Did you know I actually make you so special?
Go on.
You're from Perth, just like me.
Yes, yes. Tiger Car Club. That is special. Represent. He thinks he's West from Toowoomba, but it's nowhere near West.
We're actually, before we started this podcast, we're going through our notes. And he goes, you know, a bit about Garth. I said, yeah, I know where he started karting, know where he's from, know where he started Formula Ford. He goes, how do you know all this? I said, because he's from Perth, Rudy. Yeah. That's right. And he goes, oh, he's a guy from Perth.
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Chapter 2: How did Garth Tander's early karting experiences shape his career?
I was working for Brett, like all through my Formula Ford time, I was working at Fastlane Racing on the Formula Fords. And I was working for Brett. So I started in 98 as a Formula Ford mechanic. And it was only when Steve Richards left after the third round, which was at Lakeside, to go race for Nissan in the UK, that there was an opportunity. And I just rang Gary and, have you heard of me?
Can I have a drive? And he's like, yeah, we'll give you a test. And away we went. I was pretty lucky.
I found that, like I was looking at that, but crazy now thinking if that happened in this day and age to go from Formula Ford straight to a supercar. Like it seemed to happen maybe a little bit back then, did it?
A little bit. Lounsey did it, but he did a little bit of Formula Holden. So the young guys back then was Lounsey, myself and Jason Bright. And I was a couple of years younger than Lounsey and Brighty. And they did do Formula Holden. So Lowndes won the Formula Ford Championship in 93. Brydie won it in 95. I won it in 97, but they both did some Formula Holden stuff first.
So that's much bigger car, much more powerful. They were seriously serious cars, like fast cars. I did a couple of tests in them and they were cool cars and big, heavy, proper, like Formula 3000 cars, if you sort of think what, or Formula 2 car, just today.
So that probably gave you a bit of a grounding, but I went from 110 horsepower, 500 kilo Kent Formula Ford, not the Duratec they're using now, to a 600 horsepower thing that doesn't have the aero, even what a Gen 3 car's got to now. Supercars had no aero. They weren't that refined as they are now. They were hard to drive, really hard. Yeah.
Think back, like, obviously, we raced a bit in Formula Ford back in the day when I was racing. Well, not me and you, but you were around at that time. And I think about the step up and how much I learned through the Super 2 era. Because you jump out of a Formula Ford into a supercar and you torch that many tires.
Because in a Formula Ford, at least you can see when you do a lockup and you're like, oh, yeah, I can see that. In a supercar, you're like, God, I've got to feel for this thing.
Oh, there's a smoke coming into the cabin.
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Chapter 3: What significant challenges did Garth face during his transition to Supercars?
And that pit lane, when we got there on the Monday, wheelie bins were floating down pit lane. It was that. And it stayed wet all week. It was, yeah, man, it was seriously wet.
I always think about people like yourself and Lounds and all those guys that have been through, like, from the 90s to now. Like, the change in the sport and just the fans and all of that that used to go on compared to now. It would have been a wild era just seeing the change.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, I mean... Some of the, like Gold Coast, because Gold Coast used to be, when IndyCar came, it was a non-championship race for us. Yeah. So we just sort of, you took it seriously, but not super seriously. And, you know, it was wild.
Like it was, I mean, you guys would have heard some of the Gold Coast stories and we probably can't tell a lot of them here, but it was, it was like absolutely schoolies for adults. Like it was wild. And that was in, that was right through the growth period of supercars. I mean, I was really fortunate in my career. Went from 98 to 25. Supercars was started in 97.
So it started as a business in 96, 97. So I got on the merry-go-round right at the beginning. And I was really fortunate to go through that growth period where the sport, you know, became mainstream and there was, you know, Channel 10 did such a really, such a great job with it. And it just took off and it went from this sort of, you know, period of guys that were successful.
You're like your Brocks, your Johnsons, your Larrys, all those guys. And then a few guys would turn up with cars on trailers and, you know, to like proper professional, like everyone turns up, everyone's got the right gear, everyone can do the job. Going through that period, yeah, I got to experience some cool stuff.
What do you think actually... Everyone talks about a heyday, but what do you think was a heyday? You've been there for the whole time?
Oh, the peak... What was it? I think peaks... I think... I feel like peak supercars was probably 03 to 09, 10 in there somewhere. Yeah, I feel like that was when it was like... The growth was, you know, happened in the early 2000s. Like you talk about 2000 Bathurst and then from then on the growth period. And then I think...
it really sustained itself from 03, 04 to sort of 09, 10, 11, around that period. That was, yeah, I think peak, that was like, I look back and go, they were the glory days. But you also got to remember, like, I was funny, I was watching the other day, I was watching some slow-mos of the Gen 3 cars, and they were at Bathurst.
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Chapter 4: How did the dynamics of team management affect Garth's career decisions?
In 10 years time, people will look back, like Sebastian and Jay will look back and go, this is the glory period. So it's different for everyone. But I feel like supercars really arrived as a mainstream sport in the mid to late 2000, 2010.
It's actually, it's a topic that we bring up with a lot of people that we obviously come in and interview on the podcast. But I always look back at the early 2000s to 2010 is like the heyday for me. And I think it's because like, I remember seeing the Pink, do you remember when they did the Pink season intro where you guys all went into the truck and it was, she did the song. Oh yeah. Yes.
Oh yeah. Pink the performer.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Pink the performer. Yeah. I mean, think about that. What's the equivalent of doing that today? What would the equivalent of doing that today would be? Who would you get? I mean, you guys are closer to pop culture than I am.
Ainsley? Like Sabrina Carpenter or something.
Yeah, like she was humongous. Yeah. Humongous. She was humongous as a talent. Yeah, as a talent. Humongous as a talent.
It was a massive no. And we always go back to the product is so good today. The racing is so good, but it's just almost like the promotion of the drivers has been a little bit high, I would say. Because what they were doing back then was literally state of the art back then, the promoting of the drivers.
See, I don't understand. Were they bringing in more revenue then to be able to do that sort of stuff? Or were they just sort of pumping in more money to build the sport? I don't understand how they did that back then, but not now.
Well, they spent a lot of money. I do remember it was getting pink to do that was... Yeah.
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Chapter 5: What insights does Garth Tander share about his transition from racing to co-driving?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll just give you the option of full plug, but we would like one sent to here, please.
Would you? So we can nail it to the wall. I'm more than happy to send one here at full retail price.
Brody could pay for that one.
It won't be cheap, I'm sure.
No, I'm sure we can do a deal.
Oh, that's cool. Yeah, right. And you didn't... So obviously a few years have passed by since that and you haven't looked at getting back into a team?
Like that sounds like it was a bit of your... I got people asking me to come back full time. Yep. But at that stage, I'm like, yeah, you know, I had done a deal with Triple Eight to drive that car and I'm like, well, man, I could, you know, I'm a chance to win Bathurst every time we go there with this car and with Shane.
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Chapter 6: How did Garth Tander's experience with Shane impact his racing strategy?
Yeah.
Um, so there's that and you know, I, I sort of done at that stage, what was it? 2018, 20 odd years of, of full time. Um, you know, had my turn and I was 42, three, something like that. So I was, yeah, I mean, you, it would, to go to a new team, it's like a minimum three year deal to get it really rolling and, And at that stage, I was like, nah, this is, that part of my life's done.
This time I've got a really good opportunity here. And RD said to me at the time, he goes, you've got four good years in you as a co-driver. I was like, yeah, no worries. I did it for seven. Still won on the seventh. What was it like working with Shane? Yeah, great. Great. So we'd been speaking for a while.
Chapter 7: What does Garth Tander say about mentoring young drivers like Kai Allen?
He sort of said to me, when you're done, we should drive together. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, cool. That'd be cool. And even RD, a few times through the journey, it was like, one day you'll drive one of my cars. And I'm like, yeah, whatever, RD, you know. And then I rang him and said, no, you said one day that I would drive one of your cars. Well, how about it?
So, yeah, working with Shane was great. He was a very different unit. I mean, you guys know Shane. He's a different cat. But I got to – I knew him quite well because we'd done a bit of stuff together. We'd – Being teammates in Tony Quinn's GT team, when we were racing McLarens, we'd been teammates doing that. We'd raced against each other a lot.
So I knew him quite well, but getting that close to him was really interesting. I reckon I learned as much in those couple of years as a co-driver with Shane as I did for a lot of my full-time career. So I learned a lot from Shane.
What sort of stuff is that?
How he managed the tyre, his ability, how he did it and how he went about it. And also his ability to think when he's driving. So you think about the racing brain as a computer. Most drivers use about 80% of their processing power to drive, actually just driving the race car as fast as it'll go.
And then you've got about 20% left over to think about strategy and bits and pieces and whatever you might have. What else? Peripheral stuff. I reckon Shane uses about 30% of his CPU to drive the race car fast. So he's got this so much more capability to think about all this other stuff that's going on. So what can we do with strategy? How can I drive the car differently?
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Chapter 8: What details does Garth provide about his upcoming book 'Finish Line'?
What can I do with anti-roll bars? You know, you've all seen that vision of Shane on the anti-roll bars, how he changes the bars 27 times a lap and all the rest of it. His capacity to think on the run, I think, is far greater than anyone I've ever seen. Yeah, we had Will's engineer, Eddie the... Oh, yeah, I know what you mean.
Yeah.
Yeah. I was with him in 1922 as well. So, yeah, he's a ripping guy. How good is he? He's a ripping guy.
What's his Insta handle again? Eddie Rock Dog. Eddie the Rock Dog. Yeah, Eddie the Rock Dog.
We rang him on the weekend just gone, and he's like, that's it. You've got to shut the podcast down. After he saw him, we're like, mate, you said you know what I mean 178 times. He's like, no, I didn't. The poor bugger. He was like.
He's so embarrassed.
Oh, it was quite funny, though.
He's such a good guy. He's a ripping guy.
I'm sure he would have been out with you the Sunday night.
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