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Zane Goddard has apologised to the Supercars Championship teams involved in the multi-car crash he caused at the Repco Bathurst 1000.
Goddard ran off the track at The Chase on Lap 5 attempting a pass on Greg Murphy (#51 Erebus Motorsport ZB Commodore).
The Tickford Racing co-driver, who started James Courtney’s #5 Mustang, skated across the grass before rejoining the track in the path of the following cars.
An out-of-control Goddard then struck Dale Wood (#8 Brad Jones Racing) before an even harder impact from Matt Campbell (#26 Grove Racing) the next car on the scene.
Goddard has been fined $10,000 for the incident, half of which is suspended until the end of next year.
The 21-year-old admitted it was his fault and apologised to Tickford, Grove Racing, and BJR.
“Completely my fault — it’s my mistake,” he told Speedcafe.com.
“I feel terrible for everyone that was impacted by it; not just the drivers, but all the teams: Tickford, Groves, BJR.
“Three pretty strong cars that could have contended for fairly good spots… to take away their opportunity and damage their cars is a pretty shit thing to do, so genuinely feel really crappy about that.”
Goddard explained the series of events, dismissing the idea he was on the throttle to hurry back onto the track.
“The lock-up was a lock-up and then from that point, once I sort of went on the grass it was all quite a quick, split decision sort of thing.
“I kept hearing stuff that I was getting back on the throttle — I don’t really recall that.
“From my side, how I saw it was, every time I tried hitting the brakes it actually kept kicking the car sideways.
“I don’t know if the grass slopes that way or whatever; with my sort of thinking at the time, in hindsight, probably a stupid idea, was sort of just modulating the brakes to the point where it wasn’t kicking out, trying to keep the car as straight as possible.
“I sort of thought that would give me the best opportunity to be able to maintain it before coming back on the track.
“Regardless, I was gonna come back on the track. If I tried turning it, I was just going to go straight.
“In my opinion, if I slammed on the brakes, the only thing I could imagine happening would be, I would have slid onto the track sideways.”
