Race against time: Inside Triple Eight's Feeney repair heroics
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With their backs against the wall, Triple Eight Race Engineering have managed to turn around Broc Feeney’s damaged Ford in time for the trip to New Zealand.
Feeney’s big accident in the Melbourne SuperSprint finale left the team, along with Erebus Motorsport and Matt Stone Racing, in a race against time to make the trip to New Zealand. For Feeney, it was a first DNF in nearly four years.
Counting the cost of the crash, and knowing time was of the essence, Triple Eight had the option of reverting Feeney to the spare chassis. As fate would have it, the spare was also in Melbourne.
The spare was the car sent to the United States in December for wind tunnel testing, before being used in a special promotional event featuring Feeney and Daniel Ricciardo at Calder Park.
In the face of adversity, Triple Eight got to work, and ensured they were able to keep chassis 888A-072 in its plans for New Zealand as it fights to remain top dog in the Ford ranks.
The deadline for the car’s departure from Brisbane is Tuesday, which was nine days after the accident. That left eight days to not only repair 888A-072, but also prepare multiple containers of cars and spares for the voyage across the Tasman.
With the clock ticking, the team leapt into action, with Feeney’s father Paul also getting involved. Getting 888A-072 back from Melbourne was top priority, and Feeney senior duly fast-tracked the car back home via the spare transporter.
There, mechanics Joel Horsfall and Jordan Repetto quickly stripped the car, removing bodywork, the clips and the engine, and set about preparing the chassis for the team’s welders.
The main damage occurred at the rear of the #88 Red Bull Ampol Ford, which was struck by Cooper Murray’s Erebus Chevrolet as Feeney spun back across the track. Triple Eight's advanced manufacturing team welded the clips late last week, before the car was reassembled.
Remarkably, despite the severity of the impact, 888A-072 will make the journey to New Zealand. Revealed by the team on Monday, the car had been fired up. Job done.
“The surprising thing with this crash is, although we've torn the car down this amount, the damage is what we call superficial,” Triple Eight Team Manager Mark Dutton said in an interview with 7News Queensland.
"By that, we mean we could unbolt damaged components and bolt on brand new ones. Usually a crash of that magnitude would have damaged the centre cell. So the car has taken the hit really, really well.
“The drivers are used to it, believe it or not. It's not something they like happening, but there's a lot of ergonomics in the car, a lot of protection around the driver, so they don't walk away with any injury at all.
"Broc’s feeling fit, the car will be good to go. There will be no compromise come New Zealand.”
Dutton said sea-freighting the cars was a “bittersweet” exercise, given the repairs to the car made timelines “extra tight.”
Add to that, an added push for teams and external suppliers to get spare parts ready to go in the containers.
“Previously we used to fly the cars from last year. We actually put them in shipping containers and we put them on a boat,” Dutton continued.
“That's bittersweet. So the shipping container, once its leaves, the team has a bit of time to prepare for the event and catch up on things.
"The unfortunate thing is the cars have to be ready earlier, so we only had about five, six days to have the cars ready, containers loaded.
"That might sound like a long time. It’s certainly not, it would've been tight without the damage. Now it's extra tight."
The 2026 Repco Supercars Championship resumes across the Tasman, with the ITM NZ Doubleheader kicking off in Taupō on April 10-12. Tickets are on sale now.
