Home sweet home

Preston Hire Racing’s Lee Holdsworth has been discharged from hospital in Melbourne and is spending the weekend at home with his family.

The 33-year old racer is targeting a return for the Sydney Motorsport Park event (August 26-28) and while he knows it is ambitious given his injuries, Holdsworth wants nothing more than to get back behind the wheel of his race car.

He suffers from a fractured pelvis, knee and two ribs after the accident, which saw his Holden Commodore tapped while in the mid-pack before slamming into a wall on the inside of the Hidden Valley circuit.

Holdsworth has been overwhelmed by the support he has received and is in good spirits. 

“I’m going as good as you could hope,” Holdsworth told supercars.com.   

“I’m back home now, which is a massive relief – surrounded by my family. They’ve gone to all kinds of efforts to set this place up at home for the wheelchair.

“I’m doing a lot of lying around at the moment to help my body recover as quickly as possible and have had a lot of phone calls and text messages.

“I’m still pretty overwhelmed with the level of support – everyone should know I’m in good spirits and feeling pretty lucky I didn’t come out with more serious injuries.”

Holdsworth says motivation “won’t be a problem” and he already has plans in place to ensure he maintains as much strength as he can in the upper body, as he focuses on returning in two months time.

“I aim to get back for Sydney – I know that’s being very enthusiastic, I know that, but that’s my aim,” he said. 

“Certainly I think I’ll be back for enduros at the very least. The recovery on the hip is 12 weeks maximum – that would put me to the week before Sandown … I’m hoping I’ll heal quicker than the average person, being young and fit.”

While Holdsworth has had a number of accidents – including two in consecutive events at Sandown and Bathurst in 2014 – this one, obviously, is the biggest by a long way.

“I’ve never been injured before in a race car [so] it’s completely different,” he said.

“I’ve had some pretty freaky ones – the one at Sandown was pretty spectacular, but hitting a tyre wall is like jumping onto a bed compared to this.

“It was like getting hit by a bus – I’ve never experienced anything like it, the level of shock that went through my body, how violent it was.

“Watching that wall come towards me, I knew it was going to be seriously damaging on my body and I’ve never really thought that before in any crash before it happened.”

Initially it was believed the car could be fixed for Townsville, but on further inspection there have been varying opinions on how to proceed.  

“The car’s an absolute mess,” Holdsworth said.

“My thoughts are with the team – I’m thinking about the challenges they’ve got at the moment ahead of them.

“I have a massive belief in the team and that we’ll bounce back from this. They’ve been a great support.”