Courtney undone by 'crazy' weekend
James Courtney has rued a “crazy” weekend which saw him pick up damage in a number of sessions.
Courtney dropped from 10th to 13th in the points over the course of the weekend.
His Merlin Darwin Triple Crown campaign began with a Friday practice crash.
He raced from 19th to ninth on Saturday, but Sunday was a self-described “disaster”.
Courtney was the pinball in a first-lap multi-car crash which later ruled Scott Pye out of Race 18.
Tickford Racing repaired Courtney’s car for Race 18, only for it to pick up front end damage in an early skirmish.
“What a weekend, it’s been crazy,” he said.
"Friday we had the drama in the second session where I made a mistake and nosed her in.
"Saturday, qualifying wasn’t great, we qualified towards the back but raced back through to ninth which was fantastic race strategy, car was good.
"Sunday has just been a disaster, we were involved in a mad accident in the first race and the car sustained a huge amount of damage.”
Tickford’s miracle repair job on the #5 Snowy Rivers Caravans Mustang was to little avail.
Courtney came home 19th in the finale, which was won by Chaz Mostert.
Courtney said the challenging weekend “wasn’t great” for the teams’ points despite Cam Waters’ success.
Tickford remains third overall, but dropped ground relative to the lead two teams.
"I just got rear ended and fired off across and into the oncoming traffic,” he said of the Race 17 crash.
"She was pretty beaten up and bruised and destroyed, so the guys did an amazing job to pull it back together and just bolt corners on.
"It wasn’t great but it was for the teams’ points, so that was good.
"It was a really trying weekend for us on the Snowy River Caravans machine, good news is we only get a couple weeks off and we get to go again.”
The season will resume in Townsville next month.
