AN unusual issue put a late end to Todd Hazelwood and Tim Blanchard’s Repco Bathurst 1000 campaign.
It was a difficult four days at Mount Panorama for both Blanchard Racing Team entries, the #3 CoolDrive Mustang of Hazelwood/Blanchard not finishing while the #7 wildcard of Aaron Love/Jake Kostecki made it home in 19th.
The #3 was on the back foot early when it was issued a 15-second penalty for a pitlane infringement – namely, that the car was refuelled while on the ground – and ended up being forced to stop after being shown a mechanical black flag.
“Bathurst kicked us in the nuts today, I’ll tell you,” Hazelwood told the Schick Cool Down Lap podcast hosted by Chad Neylon and James Pavey.
“We had a starter motor that actually fell off. About 12 laps to go it actually arced out completely so I lost all power going down Conrod (Straight).
“For a couple of laps there we were trying to work out what was going on, but when it arced the car out, I lost radio, lost all the steering wheel (display), lost all the dash so I couldn’t communicate with the team what was going on.
“I tried to just press on thinking ‘well I don’t know what the issue is’ but I knew something wasn’t right which was a bit frightening. The dash was intermittent, like it would come on out of nowhere and then go off.
“I think it was about eight laps to go I felt a massive thud going up Mountain Straight underneath the car and I knew I hadn’t run over anything, so I knew something had either fallen off or something has let go.
“There was a fair element of panic behind the wheel there and it turned out to be the starter motor had fallen off and wedged itself in the back of the car and I was skull-dragging the starter motor around underneath the car for about four laps, hence the black flag.
“I saw the black flag and knew I had to come in and I knew the race was somewhere close to finishing, and two laps short unfortunately.
“I’ll tell you what, we had everything thrown at us. We obviously had that penalty in the first pitstop, I had no cool suit or helmet hose from as soon as I got in the car, so we did the whole race with no cool suit and no helmet air.
“I still feel fine which is good and the car was actually quite fast, but just the way the penalty worked out, having to take it with the green flag running, it put us a lap down pretty early and we just couldn’t get it back.
“It hurts, but that’s Bathurst for you, I guess.”
Blanchard himself voiced disappointment at how the team’s Great Race campaign played out.
“Not much to say, really. We were never competitive,” he said.
“We got one car home, but it doesn’t mean much when you’re only (19th).
“We’ll pick ourselves up and get ready for the Gold Coast.”
