Richards racing to qualify after smash
Thursday Oct 5 16:05 AEST
One of Holden's leading Bathurst 1000 contenders faces a race against time to get on the track for qualifying on Friday after Steven Richards smashed his Commodore into a wall at over 270km/h on Thursday.

Two-time Bathurst winner Richards walked away from a high-speed crash at the end of the 135-minute practice session when he lost control of his No.7 Commodore coming down Conrod Straight and hit the wall.

The crash caused extensive structural damage estimated at over $100,000 and the pit crew must rebuild the vehicle overnight for Richards to have any chance of qualifying.

Richards had put himself into fifth position on the time sheets, but was almost a second behind the Holden Racing Team pair of Mark Skaife and Garth Tander who posted the two fastest times of the day.

Richards remained optimistic the car would be ready for qualifying on Friday.

"With a bit of luck we might be saved and make qualifying," said Richards.

"I'm pretty sure the right rear tyre blew and it turned hard left in the middle of the straight.

"I just closed my eyes and waited for the big hit."

Holden driver Lee Holdsworth had an almost identical accident during the first half of practice, but he was luckier than Richards as his car missed the wall.

Richards and co-driver Paul Dumbrell could switch to the team's other No.11 Commodore, but team owner Larry Perkins ruled it out - partly because his son Jack and fellow rookie Shane Price are racing the other entry.

All teams had until late on Thursday to confirm driver entries, and Richards-Dumbrell could have been given the undamaged No.11 vehicle, but six-times Bathurst winner Perkins believes other drivers should not suffer because of Richards's error.

"I'm not inclined to switch," said Perkins.

"If that's your car, you live with it.

"We'll put in an all nighter and see if we can't make it to qualifying tomorrow."

The late crash overshadowed a dominant start to the event by pre-race favourites Skaife and Tander in the No.2 HRT Commodore.

They set the pace for the majority of the session and just when Jason Bright (CAT Ford Performance Racing Falcon) closed the gap to within one hundredth of a second, Skaife jumped back behind the wheel to extend their lead.

Skaife's two minutes 08.1727 seconds lap was clearly ahead of Bright (2:08.9665) while Rick Kelly (Toll HSV Dealer Commodore) was third best in 2:08.9803.

Steven Johnson (FirstRock Home Loans Falcon) was fourth in 2:09.0053, ahead of Richards (2:09.0613) and Ford's Craig Lowndes (Betta Electrical Falcon) who finished slightly off the pace in sixth with a time of 2:09.3283.

Skaife said it's too early to declare HRT the fastest car on the mountain - even though co-driver Tander posted a slick 2:08.9594 on old tyres.

"It's only Thursday, lets not get too carried away by the gap. I'm sure everyone will close that gap," said Skaife.

"You can easily make up big chunks of time here."

Third-placed Kelly suggested there was still plenty left in his Commodore.

"Everything is going to plan ... we are not trying to break records today."

The V8s resume tomorrow with two half-hour practice sessions in the morning followed by qualifying from 2pm.

Thats 1 down

meh, be more satisfying if a ford wins by actually beating them fair and square.
Though, i have to admit, i do like seeing skaife screw up

dam tander and skafie are fast, that s**t me.

shutting his eyes good quality race driver trait that one

As long as holdungs crash before the race starts thats alright. Dont want them taking out the Falcons when they crash like last year.

yeah, especially on the mountain.
holden have a lot to play for this year.

Well thats the 1st practice over, 2moz and saturday is where its gonna count, then come out swinging on sunday, wish ambrose was still here.

i have the feeling that SBR as a whole, would be doing much better if he were.

Seeing how fast skafie has been going is reeeaallyy s**t me, he car was going like a bucker of puss for the first half and now its just come to life and hammers.

That doesn't mean s**t, to me that's a bad sign for them as it rarely works out that way.

Did you see Richards smash?
He was driving on a straight section down Conrod and the car just turned into the wall.... Unfknbelievable.

and with skaife/tander you dont know what sort of weight they were running in the car. could have had little fuel, whereas others might have been running full tanks, trying out different set ups.

until top 10, i doubt you could realistically take anything from it. and even then, its a hullava long race, anything can happen...and usually does

everyone was saying skaife and tander would be tough to beat at snadown as well and look what happened.

i find it amazing how the times seem to come down fraction by fraction each year. 3 years ago we all ooohed and ahhhed as murphy did a 2.06.8, which is still a very impressive time but its only half a second up the road from the quickest car and qual is yet to come. a lot of competitive cars out there this year. hopefully the fords that matter can make it to the last half hour on sunday.

spewing about ch 10's telecast today. qual was delayed due to crash in fujitsu series and so only 1 or 2 laps of top 50% was able to be shown. what a crock.

skaife and tander were tough to beat at sandown, before whatever happened (i forget, crash or something broke) they were leading comfortably werent they?