The Mustang is generally raced by James Golding, however had young gun ECleary behind the wheel for the Darwin weekend due to it being a Supercars weekend.
Cleary’s cameo was short-lived, though, with the car catching fire in practice.
Cleary was able to escape the inferno unharmed, however his weekend was over on the spot.
The scorched car has since been rebuilt with Golding set to return to the seat for the SRO SpeedSeries event at Sandown next weekend.
Cleary will also make a somewhat unexpected return to the Trans Am field in a sixth GRM entry.
The Super2 regular was only slated for three starts with GRM – Darwin, The Bend and Adelaide – as a super sub for Golding on those Supercars weekends.
However, team boss Barry Rogers has found enough funding to give Cleary a crack at Sandown as well to make up for the lack of running in Darwin, with Portelli helping by buying a brand new car.
“I was very disappointed for Elliott following the Darwin engine failure and subsequent burnt-out car,” he said.
“We all know things can happen in racing and to Elliott’s credit he took the disappointment in his stride and continued to work with our crew throughout the weekend, even assisting in the truck pack late on Sunday.
“He is a very respectful, hard-working, and talented young man. I was determined to find a way to repay Elliott, although there was no expectation on his behalf.
“Thankfully one of our sponsors LMCT+ and their owner Adrian Portelli came to the rescue and bought the team a brand new car and we will proudly race two identical LMCT+ cars at Sandown with James Moffat and Elliott Cleary.
“It’s also important to acknowledge the many, many hours of work the crew at GRM have spent re-building the #31. I cringe when I see major damage, but I am always inspired with the manner in which our guys get their head down and bum up, never whinge, and just get about fixing what needs to be fixed.”
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