THE jury is out on whether Tim Slade’s bruised chassis will be repairable in time for next month’s VAILO Adelaide 500.
For the second consecutive race at the Gold Coast, Slade was yesterday involved in a Lap 1 tangle, his wheels interlocking with James Courtney’s Mustang at Turn 4 and both spearing into the outside wall.
Despite it being a relatively low-speed incident, Slade’s #23 Nulon Camaro was left looking particularly bruised.
“Impact into any solid object is never a good thing,” PremiAir Racing director of engineering Geoff Slater told V8 Sleuth.
“We haven’t had a good look but there is damage right back to the firewall, so there is extensive damage to the front-right.”
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The process of properly diagnosing the chassis’ status will begin today.
“We’ve got it booked in for Pace (Innovations, on Monday), so we’ll get it stripped and off to them to have a look at and we’ll try to get it ready,” said Slater.
There is an element of déjà vu for PremiAir, in that it last year also wound up with a car in tatters after its home race at Surfers Paradise, James Golding forced to swap chassis ahead of the 2022 Adelaide finale.
“Unfortunately that’s motor racing; sometimes there’s highs, sometimes there’s lows,” said Slater.
“Tim had great pace (on Saturday), couldn’t really show it in the race because he was taken out on the first lap and unfortunately he was taken out again on Lap 1.”
Golding did at least deliver a high, surviving a late spin to finish yesterday’s race in sixth.
