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Andrew van Leeuwen

Supercars teams ruing Bathurst crash bill

A number of teams left Bathurst with badly damaged cars, the worst affected Brad Jones Racing, Tickford Racing, Grove Racing and Dick Johnson Racing.

Much of the damage was done early in the race, Tickford Racing losing two cars from the race inside the first five laps.

Zak Best was unlucky to end up in the wall after clipping a spinning Jack Perkins on the opening lap, while Zane Goddard destroyed James Courtney's car when he went off at The Chase and speared into Matt Campbell (Grove Racing) and Dale Wood (BJR) on re-entry.

Goddard would later be fined $10,000 for his actions.

That incident left GR and BJR facing significant repairs of their own before the Gold Coast 500, the latter also facing repairs to Jack Smith's car after he tagged the wall late in the race.

DJR, meanwhile, will need to repair Will Davison's car after the in-form veteran clobbered the wall at Griffins Bend in the closing laps of a bruising affair.

BJR and Tickford have only recently been through hefty repairs after having chassis destroyed at The Bend when Andre Heimgartner collected a stalled Thomas Randle at the start of Race 2.

Courtney's Bathurst chassis won't be repaired in time for the Gold Coast, with the former series champion instead set to use the crashed Randle car from The Bend, which is almost repaired.

According to Tickford boss Tim Edwards this is the team's worst ever year for crash damage, with the bill already north of $600,000.

"I've never had a season like this, ever," he told Motorsport.com.

"Not just the fact that we're financially down the gurgler, because we were over half a million dollars in crash damage before we came here and that's another $100,000 or more from today, the guys are working around the clock.

"It's a disgrace the amount of damage we've had this year."

Grove Racing, meanwhile, is expecting to fix the David Reynolds car that Campbell was in when it was hit by Goddard.

However, should it prove too big a job, a spare chassis is on hand.

"We've got a spare chassis and we've looked at whether we will use that, but our gut feeling is that we'll put it on the jig in the workshop and it will be right for the Gold Coast," team owner Stephen Grove told Motorsport.com.

"But we do have a spare rolling chassis ready to go if we need it.

"It is frustrating. When you go racing you expect accidents to happen, but the way that happened wasn't great.

"I feel for Matty Campbell, he was minding his own business and pressing on. It's hugely disappointing.

"It's not just the money that goes into it, it's the time and effort to prepare for this race. It's bitterly disappointing."

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