If the Holden Racing Team was playing the Toll HSV Dealer Team in a game of poker for the 2008 championship, ‘Team Red’ was today dealt a straight flush, whilst the double Teams’ Champions were handed very little to bluff with.
The pillage of the Toll HSV Dealer Team will leave the reigning champions walking wounded into the 2008 title fight - their main man is gone, along with a star engineer and the best team manager in pit lane.
Paul Dumbrell was given a new home from the defunct Supercheap Auto Racing, and will fill Tander’s large shoes in 2008.
Dumbrell is a solid performer – but his move to Supercheap Auto Racing this year did his credentials no favours, as he struggled with an underdeveloped and ill-performing car.
He will partner Rick Kelly, who continues to drive for the team, and will regain the mantle of number-one status in the team.
He faces a daunting task of trying to defend the team’s recent successes against a HRT super team.
If Holden and Walkinshaw Performance are moving to resurrect the Holden Racing Team, then it would be likely that all of the ‘go-fast bits’ will head to Team Red before the Black and Orange cars of the John Kelly owned Toll HSV operation.
The truest indicator of the early difference between the two teams will come at the Clipsal 500 Adelaide in February, and whilst it is entirely likely that both teams will be circulating in the top ten next year, it appears as though the tables have turned on the Toll HSV Dealer Team, and that two red cars that stopped winning championships in 2003, will be title favourites in 2008.
