Camaros set for Sunday after late night rebuilds
A full grid of 25 Supercars will take to Sunday’s action at the OTR SuperSprint following late night rebuilds due to the first-lap crash in Race 20.
Chevrolet trio Will Brown, Cameron Hill and Jack Smith picked up damage after the former was turned around at Turn 1.
Brown was turned by Hill’s Matt Stone Racing teammate Jack Le Brocq (#34 Camaro), with Hill sent around and hit by Smith.
The front bar was ripped off Brown’s #9 Coca-Cola Camaro, but the #35 Truck Assist and #4 SCT Logistics Camaro’s suffered a worse fate.
Brad Jones Racing completed repairs on the Smith car at approximately 9:00pm local time, nearly five hours after the car returned to the garage.
Smith's damaged BJR Chevrolet
MSR, meanwhile, worked on the damaged Hill Camaro until approximately midnight.
Such was the impact between Hill and Smith, that the damage on both cars went back to the throttle bodies.
"Obviously not what you want to have happen. We were the innocent victim of that one,” Hill said.
"I was just trying to avoid Will. Then unfortunately I was tapped from behind while trying to avoid that accident.
"I’m now spun in the middle of the track and just a car came and cleaned me up while I was sitting there and there was nothing I could do.
"It’s just a shame, what should have been just a simple avoidance of an accident has turned into a big job with damage.”
No penalties were handed out over the incident, with judicial footage revealing that Brown had also come into contact with #11 Shell V-Power Mustang driver Anton De Pasquale.
The stewards report reads: An Incident at turn 1 on Lap 1 involving multiple Cars. Footage showed that Car 11 made minor contact with the rear of Car 9 at the entry to turn 1 which unsettled Car 9. At the apex of the turn, Car 2 was on the inside and Car 34 filled the gap between Cars 9 and 2. Because Car 9 was unsettled from the contact by Car 11, Car 9 had oversteer which caused it to move across the front of Car 34 and contact occurred causing Car 9 to spin. Car 34 had left room for Car 9 on the outside. The DSA considered that no Driver was wholly or predominantly to blame for the Incident.
The DNF had a major bearing on the championship, with Brown dropping to 141 points behind winner Brodie Kostecki, with Erebus now just 43 points ahead of Triple Eight.
Supercars will return to the track for ARMOR ALL Qualifying for Races 21 and 22 at 9:45am local time/10:15am AEST on Sunday.
