James Courtney’s #5 Snowy Rivers Caravans Mustang is already being reassembled after a rapid clean-up effort following his Albert Park fire.
Courtney was forced out of last Saturday’s race at the Melbourne SuperSprint due to a fire that is believed to have started in the front left of the car. The 2010 champion managed to bring the car into the pit lane, where marshals and various team members put out the flames. Courtney was unharmed in the incident, but due to the damage, was unable to start Sunday’s finale.
Tickford Racing opted to return the damaged car to its Campbellfield base and started the clean-up process the Monday after the event. After a two-day clean-up effort, Tickford staff are already preparing the car for assembly ahead of the upcoming Perth SuperSprint.
“We started working on it in earnest on Monday morning,” Tickford CEO and Team Principal Tim Edwards told Supercars.com. “The guys came in, completely stripped it, and probably spent two days non-stop trying to clean it.
“You’ve got the aftermath of the fire, but the extinguisher fire is corrosive, it gets into everything. They stripped it back to a bare shell, literally from the windscreen forward. A little bit behind that as well, but largely nothing left on the front of the car.”
“It went off to the paint shop at about four o’clock yesterday [Tuesday]. It’s already back in the workshop painted, and they’re now in the assembly phase already.”
The engine has been taken to control Ford supplier Herrod Performance Engines.
It’s the second repair effort on Courtney’s Ford in as many races after he crashed out of the Top Ten Shootout in Newcastle. The Albert Park incident meant Courtney was forced into a second DNS in as many events.
The incident ended a rollercoaster ride of a weekend for the Ford veteran, who lost a podium in Race 4 due to his involvement in an incident that saw David Reynolds buried in the Turn 1 gravel.
The 15-time race winner is 24th in the championship points standings ahead of Walkinshaw Andretti United’s Nick Percat, who similarly suffered a fire in his Mustang in Melbourne.
Many theories have been put forward concerning the spate of the under-bonnet fires in the GEN 3 Mustangs, Supercars have stated they are undertaking a full forensic investigation into the incidents with the hope of formulating a solution to the problem before the next round.
At Albert Park, the Mustangs ran in Race 6 with modifications to the catch can, including a pipe that fed excess fumes (and/or oil and fuel) out the bottom of the car rather than breathing into the engine bay, and removal of the tyre pressure sensor which had been identified as a possible trigger for the fires, with Chevrolet teams had the option of making the same changes.
The 2023 Repco Supercars Championship will resume at the Bosch Power Tools Perth SuperSprint on April 28-30.
Feature Image thanks to Tickford Racing
