Holdsworth's nasty break

Preston Hire Racing driver Lee Holdsworth has suffered a fractured pelvis after crashing into a wall during a chaotic opening lap in Darwin.

A CT scan has confirmed the diagnosis, and Holdsworth was also suffering with chest and elbow pain after hitting concrete near turn three.

Holdsworth will miss next month's Castrol Edge Townsville 400 and is likely to spend an extended stint on the sidelines.

Holdsworth was caught in lap-one chaos and tapped into the wall near turn three at Hidden Valley, the passenger side of his car ploughing into the concrete. 

The 33-year old driver was immediately taken to Darwin Royal Hospital with his father Glen Holdsworth.

Preston Hire Racing owner Charlie Schwerkolt recently gave Supercars.com an update after the nasty incident.

“I just hope he’s alright – it’s a big hit and I was pretty upset to see him go in obviously,” Schwerkolt told supercars.com.  

Schwerkolt was hopeful the Holden Commodore, purchased from Triple Eight Race Engineering, could be repaired.

“It looks like we’ll take the car to Paul Ceprnich’s at PACE [Innovations] in Brisbane. The hoop, the roll cage is bent, so we’re going to need a new roll cage to put into this frame…

“It’ll be a big fix though – so straight to Brisbane pull it to bits and find out what we’ve got there.

“We’re not sure what else, but obviously the main hoop, the front left tower was bent so we’ll go through it, assess, work it out.

“Triple Eight is obviously great help, they’ve got a shell there if we need to do something there – so we’ll be back for Townsville.”

Co-driver Karl Reindler will be on-hand to sub for Holdsworth.

“He’s the enduro driver, he’s got miles, all that sort of stuff,” Schwerkolt said.

A number of drivers were involved in the lap one incident, including Fabian Coulthard, James Moffat and Chaz Mostert.

“Obviously Coulthard was moving sideways and [Jason] Bright had to move out of the way otherwise Bright was going to plow right into it.

“So Bright moved left, into Lee – it was a big slap and Lee’s on the grass and fired in 150-180km/h.

“It’s just one of those racing incidents, sort of, I guess, and we’re the innocent bystander, innocent victim.”

Supercars has released this statement on the incident:

Supercars driver Lee Holdsworth was taken to Royal Darwin Hospital this afternoon, following a crash during the opening lap of today’s 200km race at the CrownBet Darwin Triple Crown.

A scan has revealed he suffered a fractured pelvis. He also suffered minor injuries to his chest and left elbow, but did not sustain a head injury.

He will remain in hospital, and will miss next month’s Castrol EDGE Townsville 400.

Supercars CEO James Warburton said: “All of our thoughts are with Lee, and we wish him a full and speedy recovery.”