Teenage V8 Ute racer Mason Barbera has been cleared of serious injury following his high speed accident in the opening race of the weekend at Sandown.

Barbera spent the night in Prince Alfred Hospital after a tangle with Leigh Nicolaou pitched the 17-year-old’s Ford into the Turn 6 barriers at over 200km/h.

Knocked out in the shunt, Barbera was initially suspected to have broken ribs.

Further assessment has revealed only bruising, leading to the former karter being released from hospital early this morning.

“I feel very tender, sore and bruised,” said Barbera this morning.

“I’m just stoked with the amount of support we had from everybody.

“We’ll be back at Bathurst, ready to rumble, in a different car because that one’s totalled, but I’m ok.

“I had to keep getting woken up during the night, they were concerned about me falling into a coma because of the head impact.

“I’m pretty heavily bruised on my left side, luckily nothing is broken but there is a lot of soft tissue bruising.”

Barbera says he will push ahead with plans to race in this Kumho V8 Touring Car Series next weekend at Phillip Island, where he is scheduled to drive a Rod Dawson owned Falcon BA.

“I’ll be back at Phillip Island next week in the Kumho car to give it a go so hopefully the straps don’t hurt so much but we’ve just got to keep going,” he said.