KEY POINTS:
Holden Garth Tander has scored a hat trick to win the inaugural Hamilton 400 V8 Supercars round.
The Toll Holden Racing Team driver drove superbly all weekend, winning all three races on the 3.4km run saw him win all three races on the 3.4km street circuit with ease.
His clean sweep saw him received the impressive greenstone Mark Porter Trophy - a memorial to the Kiwi driver who was tragically killed in an accident at Bathurst.
From the podium Tander heaped praise on the newly-created event, which attracted a colourful capacity crowd of 60,000.
"This is already a big event - it's going to be really big in a few years' time," he said, "I love it."
Tander now moves into second place in the V8 Supercars championship behind HSV dealer team driver Rick Kelly. Lee Holdsworth rounds out the all-Holden top three.
New Zealand-born Ford Performance Racing Steven Richards finished this afternoon's race in second place, followed by Stone Brothers driver James Courtney with Rick Kelly taking fourth.
His wasn't the only homegrown success though, with rising star Fabian Coulthard brought the Glenfords Racing Ford home in sixth place, and young flyer Shane van Gisbergen rounded out a top weekend for SBR with a gutsy drive getting him into the top ten.
Other New Zealanders had less than perfect outings in the final race, with Greg Murphy's race ending on lap seven, and Kayne Scott also picking up a DNF after locking up the Team Kiwi Racing Falcon and hitting a wall with only a few laps remaining.
Garth Tander made a perfect start to the race off pole position, quickly opening up precious real estate between himself and James Courtney.
When Todd Kelly speared into Marcus Marshall on turn one, sending the crowd to its feet, there was a reminder of yesterday's race one havoc, but little damage was done and the pair kept moving.
Lee Holdsworth ground to a halt after launching the Valvoline Commodore off the tricky chicane and into the wall, bringing out the safety car and bunching the 27-car field up at the start of lap 2.
Tony D'Alberto was put into the wall at turn six after a touch from Jason Richard's Holden, sending the Bottle-O Holden back to the garage for the rest of the afternoon.
By lap four Holdsworth's car had been cleared from the circuit and the safety car made its exit, but not for long.
Britek driver Marcus Marshall again got into a tangle with Todd Kelly, and ended up spinning amongst race traffic. No one was hit, and Marshall managed to regain his composure, but further back up the order Shane Price had hit the wall with Michael Caruso wedging his Garry Rogers Motorsport Commodore behind and giving the Chrysler 300C safety car another run.
Racing resumed at lap six, and with the pit window open, seven cars headed in to make their compulsory stops.
Tander was in a commanding position at the front, with both James Courtney and flying ex-pat Kiwi Steven Richards pushing hard with lap times in the 1:25s.
Jason Richards was given a drive-through penalty for his earlier knock on Tony D'Alberto, sending the New Zealander rocketing backwards down the leaderboard.
An unfortunate pitlane oversight saw Will Davison suffer on lap 7 when his bonnet blew up, smashing the windscreen. He returned to the pits where his mechanics used the tried and true method of bashing the underside of the bonnet with their fists as they attempted to pin it down securely.
Crowd favourite Greg Murphy's weekend of bad luck continued, when on the eighth lap he was forced back into pitlane with the brand new, sequential-gearboxed Commodore pushed back into the garage.
Tander pitted on lap nine, leaving James Courtney temporarily running the show.
Steven Richards hit the pits two laps later before setting off in chase of Tander, who was fighting through traffic on his way back towards the front.
Shane van Gisbergen found himself leading the race for the second time this weekend as the race neared the halfway point, with Kayne Scott in the Team Kiwi Racing Falcon in second place before Scott pitted.
Vodafone Falcon driver Craig Lowndes forced his way into the top ten, looking to redeem his team after a terrible weekend which saw championship contender Jamie Whincup's car retired after a massive qualifying crash yesterday
Shane van Gisbergen hung on to the lead until lap 21, the only driver who hadn't pitted and just four laps before the window closed.
The order was then put back to rights, with Tander regaining his first position followed Steven Richards, James Courtney and Rick Kelly.
Mark Skaife found himself locked in battle with Van Gisbergen, who wasn't even born when the HRT driver made his 1987 race debut. The two provided some of the best racing of the weekend with a tit-for-tat scrap seeing them swap positions three times in quick succession.
Jason Bright lost the plot and spun at turn four when in 12th place, but managed to avoid the concrete and was soon back on track but relegated to 16th, dashing the Britek Motorsport team's chances of a top 10 finish.
Paul Dumbrell wasn't so lucky after trading paint with Cameron McConville on lap 24, with the car slowing to a stop on the straight out of turn four, with his Commodore leaning radically to one side, signalling a probable suspension collapse.
This gave the safety car yet another outing and lap 28 restart saw the much-depleted field bunched up again.
The following lap McConville was forced out of his seventh place as officials made the Team BOC driver pay for the earlier incident with Dumbrell. This left Craig Lowndes in seventh place, giving some valuable points to the embattled Vodafone team.
With three laps to run, Shane van Gisbergen was again taking a swing at the V8 veterans, this time putting a pass on outspoken 'Enforcer' Russell Ingall.
Team Kiwi Racing supporters felt the team's pain when Kayne Scott put the car into the wall - emblazoned with Ford signage - at turn four. Race officials elected not to bring the safety car out again, as Tander led the procession for the last few laps before taking the chequered flag ahead of Richards, James Courtney and Rick Kelly.
Top ten
1 Garth Tander
2 Steven Richards
3 James Courtney
4 Rick Kelly
5 Mark Winterbottom
6 Fabian Coulthard
7 Craig Lowndes
8 Steven Johnson
9 Andrew Jones
10 Shane Van Gisbergen
