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Touring Car Masters competitor and tow truck driver Marcus Zukanovic was forced to improvise when his team’s transporter was damaged in shipping after Boost Mobile Race Tasmania.
Zukanovic’s XD Falcon, the Torana raced by John Bowe, and the Modena-entered S5000 were trapped in the 48ft trailer which had to have the tailgate removed back at Action Towing’s yard.
It was there where two tow trucks were stacked on each other in order to reach the top deck of the transporter, which is owned by Action Racing sponsor LMF Constructions.
“I got a phone call from my dad [team owner Mick Zukanovic], who said, ‘We’re going to pick the truck up but apparently they’ve damaged the tailgate lift on our transporter,’ and I didn’t really know the extent,” Marcus Zukanovic told Speedcafe.com.
“Whether they’ve rolled it on and rolled it off, and not raised the airbags, they’ve managed to rip the tailgate off the back of the truck.
“Once they’ve ripped the bottom hinge off the truck, and busted the bottom pivot point on the tailgate, we couldn’t get it to work, to go up or down or lift.
“So, we had to call on the family business to improvise and get the job done. We had to double stack, to back up and get cars out.
“It was a bit of a mission, but we got it done in the end.”
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While the lower tow truck could safely accommodate the weight of the upper tow truck and race cars, Zukanovic confirmed that the style of unloading was not common practice.
“I guess we were kind of left with no other option; how were we going to get the car out?” he said.
“You can’t start sending a trailer away to get repairs with everybody’s gear in it.
“It’s generally not really done, but desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Coincidentally, both Zukanovic and Bowe were race winners at Symmons Plains in the first points-paying round of Gulf Western Oils Touring Car Masters for 2021.
The latter then took a trio of second placings in an exhibition round at Baskerville Raceway on the final weekend of the month, before the cars were sent back to the mainland.
Neither the XD, Torana, nor S5000 sustained damage in the shipping incident itself or unloading, although Action Racing faces another headache ahead of Round 2 at Bathurst later this month.
“We’ll get the car ready and we’ll be going to Bathurst,” said Zukanovic.
“I don’t know if our transporter will be ready; that’s the issue,” he laughed.
“Now it’s obviously a claim, to try and get it repaired.”
Touring Car Masters supports the Repco Mount Panorama 500 when the Supercars season begins from February 26.
