2009 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 Winner
Garth Tander/Will Davison
#2 Holden Racing Team Holden Commodore VE Chassis – WR 006
The 2009 Bathurst winner’s history dates back to its debut in the final round of the 2007 V8 Supercar Championship Series at Phillip Island.
The sixth VE Commodore built by Walkinshaw Racing, it was the first of the ‘second generation’ of VEs designed by the team featuring a smart ECU, minimal in-car instrumentation and minimal actual parts in the cockpit.
A Pi Research module replaced the console, a whole new transmission tunnel and new roll cage design was also part of the re-design over the previous five chassis, while the driver was also moved slightly further inboard compared to the previous cars.
Mark Skaife gave WR 006 its racing debut at Phillip Island in 2007 carrying race number 200 in deference to the five-time champ making his 200th Australian Touring Car Championship/V8 Supercars Championship round start.
Skaife retained the car in 2008 and raced it as the #2 Commodore in what turned out to be his final season full-time in V8 Supercars – and with the Holden Racing Team – with Glenn Seton and Craig Baird piloting the car in the endurance races at Phillip Island and Bathurst, and Skaife having his final start in it at Oran Park.
It then became Will Davison’s #22 car, when he joined HRT for 2009, and he claimed wins in it at Sandown and Queensland Raceway. The car was re-numbered #2 and claimed a last lap victory at the Phillip Island 500 in the hands of Garth Tander and Davison.
Tander then put it on pole at Bathurst (his second in successive years). Davison led away in the early stages and they went on to win the race.
Davison ended up finishing second in the 2009 championship to Jamie Whincup in the car and he retained it for the first part of 2010, though it would turn out to be a difficult season for both the team and driver.
Two new cars came on-stream the Hidden Valley round, so this car reverted to spare status, though it was pressed back into action on the Gold Coast for Davison and Ryan Briscoe to drive after Davison’s late race wall-banging accident on the Mountain at Bathurst.
Nick Percat then used it in the final two rounds of the Fujitsu Series at Sandown and Sydney before running it as the #222 Coates Hire car in the 2011 series, in which he won the first round in Adelaide but finished seventh in the points overall.
The car lay idle in 2012 when Percat moved into a newer chassis before being sold in early 2013 to John Anderson (owner of the 2003 Bathurst-winning HRT 043 chassis).
Ace car restoration expert Rick Wyatt stripped it back to a bare chassis with work recently completed on the car, as the image here shows. Many correctly numbered components have been returned to the car from its successes in 2009.