Enduro season; that exciting time of the year when co-drivers escape hibernation and enter the hustle and bustle of Supercars life.
Now, we don’t need to remind you how crazy 2020 has been, but for #97 co-pilot, Garth ‘GT’ Tander, this year has been especially crazy. With the Bathurst 1000 the only race on the Supercars endurance calendar this year, we thought it would be a great chance to catch up with GT before the big race!
So, GT, what have you been up to the last couple of months?
“Well, I live in Melbourne, so not much! I’ve mostly been in charge of home schooling the kids who are in grades one and three. We are also in the middle of building a house, so being able to dedicate a bit more time to that has been good to keep the mind active. I’ve been training a lot as well as that is one of the allowed reasons for being out of the house in Melbourne, so plenty of running with the kids and dogs to keep active.”
We heard you managed to escape Melbourne. Where are you now?
“As I speak, I’m in Darwin completing my 14-day quarantine as required for leaving the Melbourne Covid-19 hotspot.”
How are you killing time in quarantine?
“It’s pretty good up here. We are allowed out of our rooms to exercise around our ‘compound’ with face masks on, so I have been able to keep up plenty of training while I am here. James Golding is here as well and he is a bit of a cross-fit geek, so I’ve been doing a bit of that with him as well. I’ve just clocked up 150km of walking and running while I have been here – I’m aiming to clock up 200km in the 14 days before I get out!”
What will you get up to after your quarantine period?
“Once I am out of quarantine, I’ll fly straight to Brisbane to spend a week with the team and catch up on everything that we would normally do throughout the year. I will check the seat positioning and go over some data with the crew before we go to the mountain. Shane and I will probably do some driver change practice as well, just to make sure everything is ok before we leave for Bathurst. Normally we would do all of that stuff through the year during co-driver sessions and test days, but this year that obviously hasn’t been possible.”
How will you prepare for the Bathurst 1000?
“Other than spending two weeks in quarantine ahead of going to the race, I will try and prepare as normally as possible. Clearly 2020 has been a different year on many levels, but at the end of the day, when you put your helmet on and jump in the car, that’s still all the same. Not having the chance to drive the car since February is something that I will have to take into account when I do my first couple of laps when we get to Bathurst, but luckily I have done a lap or two around Mount Panorama before, so I think it will all start to flow pretty quickly.”
Have any of the RBHRT drivers been keeping in contact with you?
“Shane and I usually text each other over race weekends, mainly it’s just banter, keeping everything light and having some fun!”
