A freak accident has not been enough to prevent Brett Holdsworth from taking part in this weekend’s third round of the Trans Am Series at Winton Motor Raceway.

Holdsworth was on his bike, training after the second round, and while riding at night was catapulted over the handlebars, causing an AC (acromioclavicular ligament) shoulder tear.

“I had a bit of a freak accident – I managed to steer straight into a D-Shackle on the road and basically locked up the front tyre,” said Holdsworth.

“It was pretty eye-opening at the time, I went straight to the emergency room, but I’ve been resting up and recovery has gone very well, I’m basically back in fighting shape ready for Winton.”

Holdsworth believes the tweaked format for the category – with the third race over the longer 100 kilometre distance – will play to his strengths.

“We did the 100 kilometre race at Bathurst and it was our best round for the entire year. We should have finished second in that one behind Nathan Herne, who was basically unbeatable, but we got tagged from behind on the last lap.”

Holdsworth’s failure to finish last time out at Phillip Island this year his first DNF in over 12 months. It dropped him down the championship order to 10th, but the Ashley Seward Motorsport/Breeze Holiday Parks Camaro driver is in high spirits after an equal personal best qualifying performance and a top three placing in the same weekend.

“That podium was awesome, but we want to be a regular feature in those positions. It felt like we found the sweet spot in qualifying last round. If we can nail that again it will go a long way to a strong weekend.

“There’s no holding back for us at Winton. We’ve got to get out on the front foot and start racing our way back towards the top of the championship. We have been coming back well towards the end [of the races] so the extra distance in race three is going to help us out quite a lot.”

Round three of the 2023 Trans Am season takes place at Winton Raceway from June 9-11 as part of the Shannons SpeedSeries.