Garth Tander snared his second win of the weekend at Surfers Paradise as the Toll HSV Dealer Team driver continued to make strides back up the V8 Supercar Championship standings.
For the second race in succession, Tander took the flag ahead of Team Vodafone driver Jamie Whincup – with the Ford man now just 19 points clear of Tander in the championship standings. Russell Ingall completed the podium for Stone Brothers Racing. Greg Murphy took fourth for the Tasman Motorsport squad after losing his battled with Ingall for the final podium place while Steven Richards stormed through the field after his retirement in the opening race to take fifth for Ford Performance Racing. Jason Richards rounded out the top six.
However the race didn't go to plan for two of the expected front-runners, as Craig Lowndes and defending champion Rick Kelly both failed to score – with the result being nothing short of a disaster for the latter.
Kelly had looked set to improve on his seventh place finish from the opening race of the weekend before he overshot a corner and took a trip down one of the various escape roads on the Gold Coast circuit. Although he was able to rejoin the race well down the order, he was only able to cross the line in 16th place – just outside the points scoring positions.
Lowndes meanwhile suffered a race to forget, with two spins dropping him down the field and a drive through penalty also meaning he could finish no higher than 24th – which will also leave him with work to do to secure anything from the third and final race of the weekend.
