For V8 veteran Garth Tander, his return to the team where he started his Supercars career nearly two decades ago is not about going back to the future.
While Tander acknowledges the sentimental aspect of his move, his reprise at Garry Rogers Motorsport is more a case of going back for the future.
As well as securing another two years racing fulltime in Supercars, his deal includes the post-driving prospect of becoming involved with the team's management.
Tander, 39, is rejoining GRM next year after losing his drive in the shake-up that followed the end of Walkinshaw Racing's long-running status as the factory backed Holden Racing Team.
From next year, the only Holden-funded team will be the championship-dominating Triple Eight squad, which is also taking over the HRT title.
Tander was recalled to GRM to replace rising Supercars star Scott McLaughlin, who is making a big-money switch to DJR Team Penske, alongside James Moffat, the son of V8 legend Allan.
They will continue to race the team's Volvo S60s despite its ongoing legal battle with the Swedish car maker which has withdrawn its factory backing and insists the cars must be retired.
It will be the first time in Tander's V8 career, which began at GRM in 1998, that he won't be racing a Holden Commodore, in which he won three Bathurst 1000s and a Supercars crown.
He is the last big-name player to find a seat in the driver moves for next year, with only the two places at Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport to be filled.
Tander's mix of experience, race-winning speed and business savvy was the combination team owner Garry Rogers decided he needed as a long-term solution to McLaughlin's departure amid the turmoil of his dispute with Volvo.
There's also the feel-good factor of mentor and protege being reunited, but Tander emphasised that he made the decision with his head rather than his heart.
"I certainly can appreciate the romanticism of it all, and that's fantastic," he told Fairfax Media. "But what I'm going to GRM for is that they have a car and a team that has proven over the past few years that they can run at the front, and for a driver that's looking for a new contract, that's what you want.
"I feel like their cars are more than capable of running at the front and that's really exciting to me."
Tander's confidence is something of a leap of faith as the Volvo he'll race next year may not be the same as the one in which McLaughlin won two races and finished third in the Supercars championship this year.
GRM is in court-ordered mediation with Volvo to resolve the impasse over the team's determination to keep racing its S60s.
The main stumbling block is the continued use of the production-based five-litre V8 racing engine, developed by Volvo's Polestar subsidiary and to which the company insists it retains all rights.
It is understood that GRM has a plan to replace the Volvo engines with the same V8s as run in the Holden Commodore Supercars racers if its legal action is unsuccessful.
Whether such a swap would work is a possible unknown about which Tander claimed to be unconcerned.
"Oh, look, I can't answer that because I've never driven the Volvo engine," he said. "All I can say is that I'm more than confident that GRM will be able to come up with a package that is more than capable of continuing to do what they've done in the past few years."
After being let go by Walkinshaw Racing, Tander's options for a competitive fulltime drive in Supercars were limited, with his return to GRM offering by far the best chance to win more races.
Also key to his decision was the interest in keeping him involved with the team once he decided to retire from driving.
"It wasn't just what GRM was able to offer me from a driving perspective in the short-term, but also from a career perspective in the long-term," Tander said. "I'm not 21 anymore and I'm more than comfortable with that. I still feel that I'm capable of doing it fulltime very competitively, but I need to have one eye on what the future is going to hold for me post-driving.
"I love the industry, I love motor racing and this way I'll be part of it for a long time. It's a fantastic opportunity. It was a bit of a no-brainer, really."
Tander is convinced he was signed on merit rather than for nostalgic reasons and from his side, he wasn't grabbing a career-extending lifeline.
"I do live to fight another day, but it doesn't feel like I've been given a sympathy opportunity," he said. "I see it as an opportunity to join a very strong team at a point where I'm still driving as good as anyone else, given my most recent results.
"So, look, I'm really excited by it and I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into it in the early part of next year."
Tander's assertion that he is still a front-runner is backed by his return to form from a long slump at HRT when he changed to a new Commodore at the Sydney SuperSprint in late August.
With a car that was more responsive to his driving style, he improved his qualifying performances, which had been a big weakness.
He still raced well, but starting from lowly grid positions meant he could only fight his way through to the top 10 rather than contending for podium placings.
He broke through to win the Sandown 500 – only to be told a few days later that he wouldn't be re-signed – and was in contention at the Bathurst 1000 until he crashed out after clipping the rear of Jamie Whincup's car in the wake of Whincup's win-costing collision with McLaughlin.
Tander finished the season, his 12 years with Walkinshaw Racing and closed out the team's HRT era with two strong second places and a pole position – his first in four years – at the Sydney 500 earlier this month.
The Perth-born, Melbourne-based V8 warrior's revival was validation that his problems in qualifying were car-related and reinforced his reputation as a ruthless racer.
"For me, it was just a matter of continuing the work that I'd been trying to for the last 18 months prior to that," he said. "I never had any doubts about my race speed, but it was comforting to know that I could still qualify well when the car was up to it.
"Social media's full of experts and I've read that 'Oh, he only started trying once he found out he was out of a job', but I think those in the industry know me well enough that if I had a shopping trolley, I'd be trying my hardest with it.
"Realistically, I only did half a championship this year because we didn't have the tools to do the job until Sydney Motorsport Park onwards. It's no coincidence that you roll out a new car and all of a sudden I'm at or near the front again."