TICKFORD Racing’s move to acquire chassis parts from Garry Rogers Motorsport has paid dividends, helping ensure James Courtney makes the Gold Coast 500 grid.
It was revealed in August that Tickford had purchased an ex-Commodore Supercar chassis off GRM, in addition to various materials to help repair the Mustang involved in Thomas Randle’s Tailem Bend accident.
It’s been a brutal year for Tickford, with its CEO Tim Edwards estimating its damage bill is triple any other season in company history.
Such was The Bend impact that chassis PRA 1722 has been sidelined since July, Randle since switching into FPR 1519 which was used by Zak Best during his wildcard campaign.
Now PRA 1722 has been called back into action for Courtney at this weekend’s Gold Coast 500 after his usual TR 2025 was battered in a heavy Mount Panorama crash for co-driver Zane Goddard.
“Effectively straight after Tailem Bend, that got essentially cut in half and then they have just rebuilt it as new,” Edwards told V8 Sleuth of PRA 1722.
“It’s probably about 60 percent a new chassis.
“Ironically it came off the jig the Friday of Bathurst so obviously it has been a major rebuild and they have been working on that flat out since Tailem Bend.
“It literally just had a couple of jobs to be finished on the Monday after Bathurst, which they did, and then it went off to be blasted and painted the middle of that week and they got it back later that week to put together what’s largely a new shell.”
Pressed on the GRM element, Edwards added: “We had some of the tubes because we obviously all carry stock but most of ours were more around the birdcage and the rear.
“Some of the tubes that don’t get regularly replaced in accidents we didn’t have in stock but they did because they obviously used to manufacture chassis as well, so we went round and went shopping and cleared them out of a load of stuff.
“Apart from that, we bought a whole heap of other stuff from them as well, like new what I call category-spec parts off them, to help make some space for them in their workshop.”
GRM last contested a full Supercars season in 2019.
TR 2025 is now on the jig and expected to head to the paint shop next week; it could potentially be redeployed at the Adelaide 500.
Courtney has vowed to repay his crew’s efforts this weekend.
“Obviously Bathurst was really unfortunate for us in the Snowy River Racing camp, but the crew’s done an amazing job putting a new car together for this weekend, so we’re ready to go,” said the 2015 Gold Coast race winner.
“I love this track and racing here, and the team’s been pretty quick here in recent years as well, so hopefully we can continue that trend and have a couple of really good races.
“The guys have put in some crazy hours to get everything ready with the car, so I really want to reward them with a good result and some champagne this weekend.”
Edwards also confirmed Tickford now has two Gen3 chassis in its possession, one of which has been painted.
The Campbellfield squad will field four S650 Mustangs next year, as well as at least two cars in Super2.
