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First session, first crash

08 Oct 2015
LDM boss Barry Hay says it will be a "miracle" to make the next practice session after Tim Blanchard's hit in Bathurst practice.
2 mins by James Pavey
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Highlights - Practice 1 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000

Tim Blanchard can claim first Bathurst crash for 2015, with Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport team boss Barry Hay saying it'd be "a miracle" for the car to be out for the second practice session.

And he wasn't even on a hot lap!

Blanchard clipped the wall at turn one at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, with Hay suggesting he slid on sand on the track after Garth Tander's recovery from the sand trap.

Tander slid off-track earlier and caused the first red flag of the session - and Blanchard the second after stopping on-track.

Now, his team is fighting the clock to repair the CoolDrive Commodore, which has damaged all the right-hand side suspension.

"Right front wheel first, then the back slapped (the wall) and it's basically destroyed all the suspension down the right side, so absolutely everything is torched," Hay told v8supercars.com.au.

"There's a lot, a lot, of work when it does that because it destroys bolts, hoses, everything else under it. Very labour intensive to fix it -not hard, just labour intensive to get everything back in and then line it up and basically set the car up again, so far from ideal.

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"But it's a Thursday crash -they happen on Thursday, better to happen on Thursday than Sunday."

An even bigger accident was avoided, when a Nissan came close to colliding with the CoolDrive Commodore.

"There was a close encounter because when he hit the wall and came back across, the other side nearly got destroyed because he just about clipped a Nissan going through," Hay said.

"So it wasn't because of the other car, they just happened to be there."

Now, Karl Reindler is set to miss most - if not all - of the co-driver only practice session as LDM repairs the #3 Commodore.

"If we do [make the session] it's going to be touch and go and I doubt whether it'll be the full session, but I'd be fairly confident we make the one after that," Hay said.

"If we make this one it's going to be a miracle -like I said, there's a lot of stuff to do - every component needs to be pulled out of that side, it's a mess."

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