Lee Holdsworth endured a nightmare ride before coming to a smokey end in Race 17 of the V8 Supercars Championship at Queensland Raceway today.
Stone Brothers Racing’s Lee Holdsworth was forced to flee his car after it caught fire when he limped into the pits during Race 17 of the Coates Hire Ipswich 300 meeting today.
Holdsworth had to make an emergency exit from the cockpit of the IRWIN Ford which had smoke pouring out of it when it was parked in the pit bay with 10 laps remaining of the 65-lap race.
“Someone got on the radio and said ‘get out quick’ there has been an explosion,” a dazed Holdsworth told Speedcafe.com
“Then there was a fire and I just wanted to get out but thankfully I didn’t take in any smoke.”
A flash flame erupted from the side-mounted exhausts of the Falcon which leapt into the undercover pit area. Thankfully no-one was injured in the incident.
Holdsworth’s problems began when his throttle began sticking just 10 laps in.
At first he could drive around the problem but it soon worsened and he was forced to ride his clutch, which is believed to have led to his demise.
“I was riding the clutch everywhere and in the end as you would expect it overheated,” Holdsworth said.
“The problem first started early in the race and I would say the throttle was sticking at about 5 percent then it went to about 15 percent and it progressively got worse when it was stuck open to about 90 per cent.”
Holdsworth has now fallen to ninth in the points standings after 17 races.