Vaughan speared into the wall on drivers’ right after he went across the nose of Murray’s ZB Commodore as they ran up Charters Towers Road in an early battle for second place.
Cameron McLeod then had a similar impact with the opposite wall after being shunted by Zach Bates when he slowed in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to avoid being caught in the carnage.
While that led to McLeod criticising Bates’ driving conduct, no one has been issued any punishment as a result of the incident.
“The Deputy Race Director conducted a post-race investigation into an incident involving Car 5 Bradley Vaughan and Car 88 Cooper Murray between Turn 2 and Turn 3 on Lap 1 including review of available broadcast and judicial in-car vision in consultation with the Driving Standards Advisor,” read the stewards report.
“The Deputy Race Director determined that on the available evidence neither driver was wholly or predominantly to blame for the incident and the matter did not require referral to the Stewards.”
Vaughan could not get his Tickford Racing S550 Mustang back to the pits while Murray came to a halt shortly after the scene of the crash, which also ultimately accounted for his Eggleston Motorsport team-mate, Jordyn Sinni, and Bates’ Walkinshaw Andretti United team-mate, Campbell Logan.
“I guess the two cars in front of me just collided and, obviously, just narrow track so I just kind of backed off,” recalled McLeod, who did limp back to the pits but played no further part in proceedings.
“I didn’t know if there was anyone on my inside so I just kind of tried to hold my position and obviously the bloke behind me wasn’t looking where he was going.
“So, I copped a fair bit of a whack there and that spun me backwards into the wall.”
The third-generation driver’s PremiAir Racing-prepared ZB Commodore has only just been rebuilt after a particularly wild rollover at Wanneroo, with Murray disqualified from that race for his part in the incident.
Jack Perkins went on to win Race 1 of Super2 at the NTI Townsville 500 while Qualifying for Race 2 of Round 3 starts tomorrow at 09:30 local time/AEST.
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