Garth Tander/Warren Luff, Lee Holdsworth/Craig Baird and David Reynolds/Dean Canto will all switch to spare chassis’ for the Castrol Edge Gold Coast 600.
Holden Racing Team, Erebus Motorsport and Ford Performance Racing are working hard to prepare the new chassis’ for the final round of the PIRTEK Enduro Cup after the carnage-filled Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 weekend.
With the transporter leaving for the Gold Coast on Monday, HRT is facing a race against the clock to prepare the spare chassis to replace the #2 car of Garth Tander and Warren Luff, and and repair Tim Slade’s Supercheap Auto Commodore which also suffered heavy damage to the front in a an accident during the race.
The #2 car was withdrawn from the Bathurst 1000 after a final practice accident with Warren Luff at the wheel left the chassis’ roll cage with substantial damage that could not be repaired in time.
The brakes on the HRT appeared to fail as he entered Griffins Bend, sending the car into the tyre wall, clipping Craig Lowndes’ Red Bull Holden on the way, before pitching onto its roof.
The pain was further compounded by the fact that it was already a fairly new chassis for the team which was debuted at the Sydney Motorsport Park round of this year.
“The Commodore we ran at Bathurst, which had only been raced twice, is now sitting on the scrap pile at our workshop – and I’m not sure if it will run again,” said Tander.
“The more that we stripped the Commodore back, the more damage we found – so we certainly weren’t going to fix it at Bathurst. It was the right decision to not race that Commodore.
“We’re now focusing on building up the spare chassis in preparation for the next round at the Gold Coast.”
Erebus Motorsport is the second team preparing a new chassis after Lee Holdsworth was involved in a similar incident, his second crash at a second consecutive race meeting.
The Holdsworth/Baird Erebus AMG Mercedes was taken out at Turn 2 after Russell Ingall misjudged an overtaking move and collided with the side of the Holdsworth. Like Luff’s incident the car then hit the tyre wall and rolled over, causing significant damage.
Erebus Motorsport rebuilt the chassis after the first crash at the Sandown 500, but will build up a new chassis for the Gold Coast 600, the first for Holdsworth since the Erebus E63 was debuted at the start of 2013.
Finally, Ford Performance Racing is preparing a new chassis for Reynolds and Canto after the #55 Falcon sustained heavy rear end damage in qualifying.
Despite the car being repaired for the race the team has still elected to provide Reynolds and Canto with the spare chassis used by Super Black Racing at Bathurst. The decision was made in order to give the team time to fully rebuild the damaged Bathurst chassis and address why the car came to a stand still on Mountain Straight with an electrical failure while running second.
The Castrol EDGE Gold Coast 600 takes place between 24 – 26 October.
