Moffat ready to race after all-night repair

James Moffat’s #34 Holden will be back on track for qualifying after an all-night effort from Garry Rogers Motorsport to fix damage sustained in Friday practice.

The team worked until 6am this morning repairing the front end of the Commodore after Moffat slammed the Turn 11 tyre barrier during Friday’s final session.

In what Moffat described as a “dumb” mistake, the 33-year-old clipped the inside wall, which fired the car into the outside barrier.

The incident followed a heavy crash for Moffat at Bathurst a fortnight ago that left the squad preparing Richard Muscat’s Dunlop Super2 chassis for the Gold Coast.

“We had to cut both front chassis rails and weld new sleaves on,” Rogers told Supercars.com of the damage repaired overnight.

“Thankfully the shock tower didn’t move, but obviously we did the upright, shocker and steering element. The steering was broken on both sides with the two hits.

“We put the same engine back in, but by the time you’ve got an airbox and radiator and all of that stuff, it adds up.

“It was probably $50,000 just in bits. Bathurst probably looked a lot worse but, adding up the parts, that was $78,000.

“The disappointing thing was it was a practice session. Crashes are going to happen in car racing, but in the circumstances, it was unnecessary.

“He was pretty down on himself, but you’ve just got to move on. If you get clean-bowled you’ve got to settle yourself again for the next innings.”

Moffat is currently without a confirmed ride for 2018, with youngster James Golding – who is co-driving with Garth Tander this year - tipped to take over the #34 entry.