SCOTT Pye has taken aim at James Golding after crashing out of the Boost Mobile Gold Coast 500 finale while taking avoiding action.
Golding’s #31 Nulon Camaro was left pointing the wrong way after whacking the tyre barriers on the outside of the Turn 1/2/3 chicane.
Having lost fourth spot to Matt Payne and fifth to Shane van Gisbergen, Golding opted for a flick-spin to get going again.
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He completed that just as Pye was blasting out of the first chicane, the Team 18 driver reacting by swerving right to dodge contact.
Pye clattered the wall in doing so, causing race-ending damage to the Hino Camaro and triggering a late Safety Car.
The incident went unpunished, with the matter not referred to the stewards on the basis that Pye had not sufficiently slowed under yellow flag conditions – a ruling that further infuriated the future Triple Eight co-driver.
“Unfortunately I came across the dumbest driver I have raced against in 20 years,” he told V8 Sleuth.
DRAMA!
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Wild contact between Golding and Pye has triggered a late race bp ultimate Safety Car! Follow every moment of the @BoostAus Gold Coast 500 LIVE in RaceHQ: https://t.co/dwVWgm3Rku #RepcoSC #Supercars pic.twitter.com/hmW2uURZKx
“He did a really silly thing, very dangerous as well, especially when you don’t know what’s coming and you’re positioning the driver’s door to oncoming traffic. It’s just insane to think that he did that.
“And then it blows me away that there’s no penalty. The yellow was pulled out right as I got to Turn 1, which I was committed to the corner.
“It’s impossible to avoid a moving object, a guy that is doing a donut in the middle of the field.
“But that will happen again to that kid unfortunately; hopefully he never gets hurt, doing things like that. I’m not sure if he was tired, maybe physically worn out at the end of the race, it’s a long day… and he didn’t think.
“Hopefully with experience he learns.”
Golding took a vastly different view.
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“To be honest, I don’t really know what else I could do,” he explained to V8 Sleuth.
“I spun the car, still not on the race line. I wouldn’t have done it if I was putting my car in the middle of the race line…
“I feel like I was stuck between a rock and a hard place there,” he continued, adding that finding a gap in the traffic on a 70-second lap was equivalent to “finding a needle in a haystack”.
All up, the 27-year-old had mixed emotions after coming home sixth, as PremiAir Racing continues its quest for a maiden Repco Supercars Championship podium.
“There’s a lot of positives to take out of it. You can’t unsee the progress that we’ve made,” he surmised, having starred in Bathurst qualifying earlier this month.
“We didn’t quite finish it off today… I ran out of kerb strikes and was probably being a bit too conservative.
“I didn’t want to get a five-second penalty and I took the long way around the kerb and it put me too close to the tyres at the exit. That’s obviously what caused the spin.”
