Heimgartner and Murray were running on the cusp of the top 10 when the pack checked up for the relatively slow right-hander, with the former pushed into the latter’s Supercheap Auto Camaro and riding up over its right-rear corner.
Both were able to drive back to pit lane and Heimgartner initially managed to stay on the lead lap even after his Brad Jones Racing crew applied race tape to the #8 Camaro.
“It’s pretty mental,” the New Zealander told Speedcafe.
“It’s one of those things, I guess, when everyone checks up and then I thought I got out of it alright and was just going to go around the corner like normal.
“Then I got a big hit from behind and then I think it was sort of a bit of an avalanche effect from there.
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“Talking to the stewards and Bairdo [Driving Standards Advisor Craig Baird], it just looked like it was three or four cars behind me all into each other.
“Unfortunately, I was the unlucky one in the chain that had to brake and ended up in the sky.
“It was pretty crazy. I was up there for a wee while, and I was thinking, ‘Shit.’
“I was waiting to flip, and luckily it stayed on all four wheels and surprisingly not much damage apart from the cosmetic.
“So, disappointing, it’s been a bit difficult, but it’s just one of those things.”
Heimgartner went on to finish one lap down in 21st after he and Murray were each issued a drive-through penalty for breaching the 80km/h speed limit during the Safety Car period which ensued.
Murray, though, finished dead last of the 25 starters at six laps down given Triple Eight Race Engineering needed longer to tape the #888 Camaro’s torn-up bodywork together again, although the extend of the mechanical damage was some ill handling.
“That was pretty scary,” the debutant told Speedcafe.
“We all sort of concertinaed going into there, so I was expecting a little hit but I wasn’t expecting the car to come across the front of my windscreen, so that was a bit of a shock.
“So, I just let go of the steering wheel and made sure it didn’t get ripped out of my hands or anything.
“But, the boys did a good job to get it fixed and get me back out there.”
The incident itself was not referred to stewards and thus resulted in No Further Action, with the stewards report explaining:
“An incident on the first Lap of the Race at Turn 5 which involved Car 8, Andre Heimgartner, colliding with the rear of Car 888, Cooper Murray. The available evidence showed that the incident resulted from Cars slowing ahead of Car 888 which caused Cars 888 and 8 to brake hard and multiple Cars behind Car 8 colliding with each other and in turn with Car 8. There was no evidence that any Driver or Drivers were wholly or predominantly to blame for the incident.”
The incident was the second of the weekend in which one car rode over the corner of another at Turn 5, although in that case Thomas Randle’s clash with fellow Mustang driver James Courtney was less impactful.
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