THE ex-V8 Supercar Holden Commodore VF that now lives in the United States at Richard Childress Racing has indeed had quite the racing history.
So just what is it and what has it previously done in Australian racing?
The former Image Racing Super2 car now residing with the famous American NASCAR squad has had a long history in both the Supercars Championship and Super2 Series.
Now located in North Carolina, its latest trip to the United States is far from its first time heading to America given it was raced by Garth Tander in Holden Racing Team colours at the 2013 Austin 400 at the Circuit of The Americas in Texas.
The car – chassis WR 019 – was debuted by Tander at that year’s Clipsal 500 in Adelaide and was raced by the 2007 Supercars champion throughout that season, including the endurance races.
He and Nick Percat finished fourth at Bathurst in the car in 2013, a season in which it won two races – at Townsville and Phillip Island.
Tander raced the car again in 2014 – including a race win in Townsville – before it was passed across to Walkinshaw Racing from the Sandown 500 for Tim Slade to drive in Supercheap Auto colours.
Slade and Tony D’Alberto used the chassis to finish on the podium on the Gold Coast (they were awarded third place after Mark Winterbottom was penalised post-race for a bump-and-run pass at the last corner) and Slade continued to race the car throughout the 2015 season as well.
This car was then sold (along with the sister WR 016 chassis) to Erebus Motorsport for 2016 and its big swap from Mercedes-Benz AMG E63s to Commodores.
Aaren Russell drove the car in the early part of the season before parting ways with the team and Craig Baird raced it in Hungry Jack’s colours at Queensland Raceway.
Shae Davies then stepped into it and drove with Kiwi Chris van der Drift in the endurance races and the remaining single driver rounds.
Unraced during 2017 as the Erebus team’s spare chassis and again in 2018, the ex-Tander car was sold to Image Racing and driven by Jordan Boys in the Dunlop Super2 Series in 2019.
The young gun won races later that season at Sandown and Newcastle and again raced the car in Super2 in 2020 and 2021, including a race win in the ’21 season finale at Bathurst.
Jay Robotham took over racing the car in last year’s Super2 Series – he had his last start in it last December in Adelaide.
Note: We have updated this story with further updated information on this chassis’ history from 2022.
