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Tickford Racing has added heat shielding to all of its cars after Jack Le Brocq suffered burns in the Repco Supercars Championship season opener.
The Truck Assist Racing driver had been on crutches in the lead up to the Penrite Oil Sandown SuperSprint after suffering the injury.
The issue began during Saturday’s running and was exacerbated on Sunday, resulting in blistering and loss of feeling in his right foot.
That blister would pop following Race 2, leaving Le Brocq with his foot in a bucket of blood.
“I’ve always got hot feet,” Le Brocq explained.
“It’s just the joys of being tall and being close to the firewall, but [never before] to that extent. It was quite painful on Saturday and I knew I was probably in a little bit of trouble but I thought it’s happened before, she’ll be right, it will bounce back.
“Then it started to blister up and was worse than what we thought.
Explaining what he thought the cause of the issue was, Le Brocq said, “I think it was purely because I’m quite tall and I suppose being a new car and the way I try to go about my seating position, sort of trying to be a little bit more stretched out.
“So at full throttle, my foot is almost on the firewall and I suppose that was just enough to basically do the damage on the Saturday and then that’s carried into Sunday and sort of exaggerated it.
“The guys have put a lot more work into the heat shielding and stuff like that to try to prevent that for myself and even transfer that into the other cars.
“So yeah, it was just a bit unlucky and it was quite warm at Bathurst and there’s a lot of wide open throttle as well so it produces a lot of heat through the engine there. We should be right now.”
Le Brocq has undergone treatment since suffering the burn, applying an antimicrobial/antibacterial silver dressing to the wound.
The Melbourne-born driver said the injury is largely healed, except for the side of his foot.
The 28-year-old is optimistic he won’t have to change his driving style to suit at this weekend’s Penrite Oil Sandown SuperSprint.
In years past Le Brocq had been a left-foot braker at Tekno Autosports (now Team Sydney), but was coerced by Adrian Burgess and Campbell Little to right-foot brake.
“It’s actually come up really well,” said Le Brocq.
“Dr Carl [Le, Supercars medical delegate] and the other people that were in the clinic or whatever at Knox Hospital, they looked after it pretty well, gave it a silver dressing and everything so yeah it ended up pretty well.
“I was on crutches for a couple of weeks but she’s all good now. I’ve got a boot back on it the last couple of days, so we’ll see how it goes.”
“Underneath has probably healed up quicker than what the side has,” he added.
“The burn on the side of my foot is probably the biggest thing that hasn’t healed up properly yet but other than heel-toeing, you don’t really use that, so it’s going to be one of those things.
“I’ll see how it goes tomorrow morning in practice and just make sure we can get through the weekend alright but I can’t imagine it’s going to be an issue.”
