Will Brown’s Supercar has arrived back in Melbourne today as Erebus Motorsport get stuck into its rebuild in preparation for Bathurst in two weeks time.
Brown suffered a 56G impact in Sunday’s opening race at Auckland, but it wasn’t until the team returned to their Melbourne base that they could properly assess the damage.
No time was wasted, with the car strippled and then taken to Mount Gambier where it spent five days on the jig before it was painted and returned.
“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.”
The chassis came off the jig Monday night, before it was sent to Max Medhurst Crash Repairs to be painted yesterday ahead of its arrival in Dandenong South late this morning.
Erebus extends a special thank you to Max Medhurst Crash Repairs, Online Laser in Bendigo, Flexicut Engineering in Dandenong, and Mount Gambier’s Fine Cut Laser for their huge contributions to repair the #9.
“We are now in a pretty good position and back on track to have three cars ready in time for Bathurst,” Ryan said.
“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.”
The rebuild continues with body work, plus the install of the engine, transmission, and suspension all big items left to do.
Brown and his co-driver Jack Perkins are set to join Greg Murphy and Richie Stanway for testing next Wednesday, September 28, in what will be their final test day ahead of the Bathurst 1000, October 6-9.