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Brad Jones says crash repairs following the Gold Coast Supercars round could push his team’s Gen3 builds back by a week.
The #96 ZB Commodore of Macauley Jones was one of more than six cars damaged in a mammoth pile-up in the early stages of Race 32 on the streets of Surfers Paradise.
Jones’ entry momentarily burst into flames before Nick Percat and James Golding helped him to extinguish the fire.
The #96 entry will be repaired in time for the final round in Adelaide, though it comes at a rather inconvenient time.
November is a critical period for Gen3 ahead of its introduction into the championship at next season’s opening round in March.
While the need to complete repairs before the final-ever round of the current-era cars is a setback, BJR’s team owner is unperturbed.
“We’re still waiting for bits to turn up for Gen3,” Brad Jones told Speedcafe.com.
“[The crash] will probably put us a week further behind, but we’ve got our second chassis now.
“The guys are working on it down at manufacturing; it will go to the paint shop [this week]; we’ve got the [wiring] loom for it.
“We’re expecting a lot of parts to come in over the space of the next four weeks.
“We’d always planned to spend a week repairing and getting these cars ready for Adelaide, so it’s a bit hard to tell what difference it’s going to make at the moment.
“I don’t think it will have a major impact, but as I said, it will knock it around a little.”
BJR took delivery of its first Gen3 chassis from PACE Innovations at the Sandown Supercars round in August.
Having now acquired its second example, Jones says it won’t be long before the third and fourth are delivered.
“I’m expecting another one at the end of this month, and then another one a couple of weeks after that,” added Jones.
“The first car is going to be a slowish build trying to work out where everything goes, but then I’m hoping the next three will go together quickly.
“I think this was always PACE’s plan to get them out.
“Tickford and BJR are the two last teams to get their two last cars and that’s why they’re coming in quick succession — I think this was always the plan.”
VCAT for the Gen3 Supercars started today at Wellcamp Airport, near Toowoomba, Queensland.
