ALL hell broke loose when the Supercars field rumbled down to Turn 5 on the opening lap of Race 2 at the Darwin Triple Crown yesterday.
A concertina vaulted Andre Heimgartner’s Brad Jones Racing Camaro up and over the Triple Eight wildcard of Cooper Murray, the latter sustaining plenty of cosmetic damage that necessitated a period in the garage for repairs.
There were no penalties issued over the matter, with the post-race stewards report explaining why.
“The available evidence showed that the incident resulted from cars slowing ahead of Car 888 which caused Cars 888 and 8 to brake hard and multiple cars behind Car 8 colliding with each other and in turn with Car 8,” it read.
“There was no evidence that any driver or drivers were wholly or predominantly to blame for the incident.”
Heimgartner lamented a wasted opportunity having qualified a reasonable 12th.
The Kiwi brought the car home in 21st but that was not enough to prevent him from dropping back outside the championship’s top 10.
“Unfortunately being the last one in the chain and you ended up in the sky and took a while to come down,” said Heimgartner.
“After that the car wasn’t actually too bad. I think the set-up from then wasn’t terrible just one of those things when you start there and (get) stuck in everyone’s mess.
“So disappointing overall but will keep on trucking.”
The incident also ruined a stunning qualifying performance earlier by debutant Murray.
“The first lap of the race definitely wasn’t ideal after being taken out on the fifth corner,” he said.
“I was lucky enough that the awesome crew at Triple Eight managed to get the car fixed and get me back out there to circulate and learn as much as possible.”
Murray will return to the Super2 field for next month’s Townsville 500 before rejoining the main game for an enduro effort alongside Craig Lowndes at Sandown and Bathurst.
