"Mammoth" repair completed on crashed Erebus chassis
Will Brown's chassis has been repaired following his monster 56G crash at Pukekohe Park earlier this month.
Given the car needed to be flown back to Australia, there was significant doubt over whether it could be repaired in time for the Bathurst 1000.
The flow-on effect from that was that Brown and Jack Perkins may have needed to use the spare chassis, which was earmarked for the Greg Murphy/Richie Stanaway wildcard entry.
However once the car was back in home soil the team quickly declared its intention to repair Brown's car so that it could field all three entries at Mount Panorama.
The repair has since made rapid progress, the team confirming today that the chassis is already off the jig after repairs in Mount Gambier.
It actually came off the jig on Monday night before being painted yesterday and returned to Erebus HQ in Melbourne today.
The car itself will now be rebuilt before a Winton test next Wednesday and the trip to Mount Panorama a few days after that.
"The chassis underwent significant repairs with the whole rear end cut off from the main hoop in order to restore the main chassis rails, the transmission and suspension structure of the vehicle,” Erebus CEO Barry Ryan said.
“In total, 33 bars were replaced. It’s been a mammoth effort so far.
“On average we had three crew members working on it with over 200 hours of labour completed in just six days to repair and paint the chassis.
"We are now in a pretty good position and back on track to have three cars ready in time for Bathurst.
“The plan now is to work through for what would be a normal week, take the weekend off and have the car ready well ahead of time for testing on Wednesday.
“Our crew are outstanding; I can’t thank them and the businesses that have chipped in to help get this done.”
News of the repair comes a day after Ryan was reprimanded for a post-race altercation with Mark Winterbottom in New Zealand.
Contact from Winterbottom prompted Brown's crash, Ryan seen on TV lightly pushing Winterbottom as he and Brown discussed the incident in the Erebus garage.
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