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Pye: Unlucky and Lucky at Same Time

04 May 2013
It's two from two for Scott Pye - he's once again been airborne in his ekol Racing Holden Commodore after an incident at Barbagallo Raceway.
3 mins by James Pavey
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It’s two from two for Scott Pye – he’sonce again been airborne in his ekol Racing Holden Commodore after an incidentwith Rick Kelly and Garth Tander at Barbagallo Raceway.

The first race of the Chill Perth 360, the60/60 race with two halves saw a huge off from Pye – he was just lucky itwasn’t a bigger incident as there was potential for his Commodore tobarrel-roll after all four wheels left the ground.

Coming down towards the last corner, thecars were three wide. Pye was on the outside and while he thought he was pastKelly, he got a nudge from him and then another from Tander, who Pye couldn't see on the inside of Kelly. 

After the race, it was the obvious question– what happened?

“I still don’t really know yet,” Pye said.

“It’s one of those things. It was the lastlap (of the first half) and I was covering to defend. There must’ve been anoverlap and Rick Kelly – or Todd, I’m not sure – got into the back of the carand turned me sideways and got into the door.

“Garth – when he hit me it was a fullsurprise. I didn’t realise he was on the inside, I couldn’t see that.

“And after that we were just very lucky thecar didn’t go over. When I was flying through the air I had thoughts of FabianCoulthard’s crash at Bathurst that year and I thought that was going to happen.

“I knew it was going for quite a while and theworst thing was, I knew I was sideways. Usually when it’s sideways it’s not thebet result.”

He described the accident as lucky andunlucky at the same time.

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The team – who worked night and day torepair Pye’s crashed car after Tasmania to prepare for this event– repaired the car for the second half of the race, miraculously. And Pyesaid pace was good, but a penalty for a loose right hand window meant the cardropped a lap and there wasn’t a chance of salvaging a good result. 

“The guys again have had to do a great joband get the car repaired for me and they did,” Pye said.

“We managed to get out there and paceactually was crazy – the car was so beat up but the pace was good!

“Unfortunately we were a lap down, we hadthe drive through with the penalty because we had the window falling out.

“Had we stayed on the lead lap we might’veactually been able to go for a decent result still. The guys did a great job toget the car out.

“The car was fast at the end there– it could’ve been quicker if the front splitter was pointing in the rightdirection… Tomorrow for sure we’ll be a lot quicker. Thesesorts of things happen when you qualify poorly. We had good pace in Practiceand need to get it right in Qualifying.”

Despite two incidents from two events, Pyeisn’t discouraged.

“They say the third’s the biggest and best,so we’ll see what happens! I won’t be

disappointed if that was the last of thebig ones.”

Pye said he was fine after having some painkillers and will rest up ahead of tomorrow’s two Qualifying sessions and tworaces.

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