Erebus Commodore out

The second Erebus Motorsport Holden Commodore VF has been withdrawn from this afternoon’s 300km race at the Castrol Gold Coast 600 after lead driver Shae Davies crashed heavily at Turn 11 early in qualifying.

A post-session inspection by the team and Supercars technical staff ruled the car out of the race and it now has to be transported back to the team’s Melbourne headquarters to be repaired in preparation for the November 4-6 ITM Auckland SuperSprint in New Zealand.

Davies and co-driver Chris van der Drift finished 19th in the UltraAir-backed Holden.

“The car will hopefully get back to Melbourne by late Monday afternoon where it will be stripped,” explained team boss Barry Ryan.

“Jimmy’s Fab Shop will bring their jig down from Castlemaine and have it there ready and we will fix it.

“There is bar rail, chassis rail damage. It is pretty extensive.”

Ryan said the witness marks on the body panels indicated contact on the left entering the corner before the car ricocheted across the track into the concrete wall on the exit.

“It looks like he’s hit the inside wall and then it’s just fired him into the fence,” said Ryan. “The same thing happened to Jack Le Brocq (Monster Falcon) yesterday.”

“It’s just a learning thing. Shae is the first to admit this is a good opportunity for him to see what level he is at.

“He has been doing a great job, he hasn’t been making hardly any mistakes but this one is a bit of a costly one.”