Scott Pye’s heavily damaged Dick Johnson Racing Falcon will return to action at the Wilson Security Sandown 500 after being deemed repairable by chassis specialists Pace Innovations.
The #16 Ford suffered a front-on hit with the concrete at the exit of the Western Sydney venue’s third turn last Sunday in an incident triggered by Mark Winterbottom.
In the immediate aftermath of the crash, the team held fears that it may be forced to field a spare chassis at Sandown.
The damaged car arrived back at DJR headquarters on Tuesday where it was assessed by Paul Ceprnich’s Pace team, who are now replacing the front-end of the chassis at their own workshop.
A DJR spokesman told Speedcafe.com that the team will likely receive the chassis back from Pace on Monday, with the rebuild well on track for completion prior to Sandown.
The crash was another blow for the underfunded outfit, which found itself needing to build up a new car for David Wall earlier this year after a shunt at Pukekohe.
“It’s done quite extensive damage because of where it’s hit, but the fact that it was directly front-on was both positive and negative,” explained the spokesman of the Pye chassis, which also required a visit to Pace after the Clipsal 500 in March.
“It means we can keep using the car, but as well as buckling the firewall, pushing the tunnel back and heavily damaging the left and right rails, it’s done a lot of damage to the ancillary systems.
“Oil pumps, radiator, oil cooler, alternator… a lot of little expensive things at the front of the car are all gone.
“It’s not too bad but I think we’ll only just get change from $75,000.”
The car will arrive at Sandown without any post-repair mileage as DJR is the only team in the field not planning a pre-Pirtek Enduro Cup test.
The budget-concious squad has only used one of its three allocated private test days so far this year, leaving co-drivers Ashley Walsh and Steven Johnson to complete the bulk of their enduro preparation at ride days.
Unfortunately for Dunlop Series leader Walsh, Pye’s crash in Sydney meant he didn’t get to take part in the post-event passenger running on Monday.
“Ash will have fewer miles on him than what would be ideal, but we’re still comfortable that he’ll be prepared and ready to go,” said the spokesman.
“The bulk of what we’d be looking to try (if we tested) will be driver changes and making sure drivers are comfortable in the car and we’ve had the opportunity to to do that before now.
“We don’t really have much to test (performance wise), anyhow. The relationship with FPR means that they basically test for us when it comes to development.
“It’s as much about the fact that we don’t want to be putting unnecessary miles on the cars if we don’t have to.”
Of the other cars crashed in Sydney, Walkinshaw Racing has confirmed that Tim Slade’s Supercheap Auto Holden chassis will not race at the September 10-12 Sandown event.
Slade, who was rubbed out of the weekend early in the opening race, will take over the chassis recently vacated by Garth Tander, which was to be handed over to Nick Percat prior to the incident.
Ford Performance Racing and Volvo Polestar Racing are meanwhile scheduled to have their damaged David Reynolds and Robert Dahlgren driven cars back on track for testing at Winton early next week.
Reynolds’ Falcon suffered extensive rear-end damage in the incident that took out Pye, while Dahlgren’s S60 slapped the wall front and rear between turns five and six after a mistake from the Swede in Saturday’s second encounter.
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