A MOTORCYCLE mishap means he won't be trackside, but Wagga-bred engineer Matthew Garlan is confident his successful tenure with Dick Johnson Racing Team Penske will end on the ultimate high at Bathurst on Sunday.
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Garlan has been a part of three-time defending V8 Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin's support crew for the past four years, and McLaughlin will look to win Australia's biggest race for a second straight year this weekend.
After a post-race penalty denied McLaughlin the 2017 Supercars title in agonising fashion, the team has dominated by winning the last three series.
Garlan helped design the Ford Mustang GT McLaughlin and co-driver Tim Slade will pilot this week, while Fabian Coulthard and Tony D'Alberto will be in the team's other car.
Garlan has been in charge of shock absorbers, component design aspects including suspension development, exhaust-engine factors and chassis, and also is in control of date engineering at select races.
But he will be pulling his strings from the team's Stapleton workshop this year.
"I'm not at Bathurst because I had a motorbike accident and separated my shoulder, and have to have surgery on Monday," he said.
"With all the COVID restrictions they've cut down the personnel and how many people are in pit lane, so we do the same sort of stuff from the workshop.
"We're throwing absolutely everyting at Bathurst this year, it's been a huge lead up."
Garlan said the devastation of missing out on the 2017 title in controversial circumstances had driven the team to dominate the series ever since.
"I think 2017 was the reason why everyone was so successful the last three years, it galvanised everyone," he said.
"We didn't just want to win, we wanted to demolish everything so there was no chance of losing the championship in the last round ever again.
"I had my first child in February so the travel and commitment doesn't suit at the moment, but I'll probably keep doing a bit of it on the side.
"People don't realise that when I'm watching it I'm so scared something's going to go wrong with the car. To actually enjoy watching racing again is going to be awesome."
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