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Randle to use spare chassis at Sandown

01 Aug 2022
Spare car on standby for Heimgartner
3 mins by James Pavey
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Stall on grid ends in chaos

Thomas Randle is set to use a spare chassis at Sandown after his sizeable crash at The Bend.

Randle was rear-ended by Andre Heimgartner after he stalled on the grid on Sunday.

Both Randle and Heimgartner were hospitalised in Adelaide, and were later discharged.

Randle’s car sustained major front and rear damage, with Heimgartner’s car suffering front end trauma.

The impact was registered at 38g.

Randle will revert to the team’s spare chassis for the next round at Sandown.

Wildcard Zak Best raced the spare Mustang at the OTR SuperSprint.

Tickford Racing boss Tim Edwards told Supercars’ Cool Down Lap podcast said the #55 has suffered a "huge" amount of damage.

"That would be a fairly correct assumption," Edwards said when asked if Randle will revert to another car.

"It’s disappointing for car 55, it’s a huge amount of damage.

"Thankfully Thomas is okay, he’s had a CT scan and it shows that he’s okay.

"He’s having an MRI in the morning as a final check.

"It was a sizeable impact."

Brad Jones Racing will assess the damage to Heimgartner’s car when it returns to the team’s Albury headquarters.

Jones feared the damage to the #8 R&J Batteries Commodore went deep into the footwell.

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"Until we get it home and we pull it apart, and then see what the guys can do with it," Jones said.

"But it’s got a lot of damage, as you’d expect from that sort of incident.

"I have a bunch of magicians working for me, so I’d like to think that we’re going to be under control, [but] we’ve got a spare car.

"We’ve achieved the impossible before and maybe we’ll have to do it again.

"Our back-up plan is obviously our spare car, but we haven’t run it for a while.

"There’ll be a bit of work to be done to that, so we just have to get home and see."

Sunday was a bruising day for Tickford, with Best forced to retire from the finale after the wiper motor failed.

Cam Waters scored two poles, but second in Race 23 was his only podium of the weekend.

It came after James Courtney finished third in the earlier race, which was shortened after the Randle-Heimgartner incident.

Jake Kostecki also retired in the finale, ending a torrid weekend for the TRADIE Ford pilot.

Regardless, all five Mustangs showed pace, Randle qualifying a career-best second prior to his crash.

Best’s wildcard appearance featured a shock pole on Saturday, and impressive pace on Sunday.

"You look at the positives of the weekend rather than looking at the negatives," Edwards said.

"We had three cars in the top four in one race, and four cars in the top 10 in another one.

"We showed really good car speed.

"[Best] showed it wasn’t a flash in the pan, he did a good job."

The season will resume at the Penrite Oil Sandown SuperSprint on August 19-21.

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