As most of you already now know, during the morning practice sessions on Saturday, Gary had an incident. The weather was poor, with rain on-and-off and Gary was finding that the car was a bit of a handful in those conditions, however, he had a couple of good practice laps before unfortunately losing control of the car under Starkeys Bridge and, and after a brief 'Passenger ride' Gary found himself being carried towards the wall on the left-hand-side of the track, front first. As if that wasn't bad enough, the rear came round and made contact too.
After a few moment of thought collection, Gary decided that the car, although in a very sorry state, could be limped back to the pits, so that's what he did.
It was at this point that the collective good will of everyone, particularly the Big Power crew became apparent, with everyone pulling together to do what they could to help out. Once the car was in a safe position and with no other reason for pondering the already devastating situation, everyone made the best of the rest of the weekend before dragging the poorly wounded Evo back to its home.
Upon arriving back at the APT workshop at around 7.00pm, Gary, Chris and Stuart proceeded to tear the car apart, all equally keen to assess the extent of the damage, so as to allow some kind of peaceful nights sleep! By 10.00pm, the entire front end was stripped out, including panels, bonnet, bumper, engine, front bed and suspension assembly along with the rear end too and things looked a little better with all the twisted metal out of the way.
What remained was a clear picture of what was needed, so H-Tech Styling were called and very promptly came over to our workshop this morning to cast an eye, which they did and despite the suggestion of a considerable amount of time needed to re-align the chassis, they are confident that they can see the task through. We are hoping that they can tackle the structural aspect and get the skeleton of the car back to a nice straight position, whereupon we can consider what to do with panels and exterior paintwork. It also appears that there may be some body panels locally too, which will help. So, we left it to H-Tech with them already suggesting commencing work next week!!
Then came another call from Chris about 30 minutes ago and as a result of that call, the Evo is, as we speak, being loaded onto the trailer to be taken to H-Tech!! So, it seems that the proverbial wheels are already turning towards getting Gary's beloved back up and running.
Here are some pics of the car as it stands right now, prior to being loaded onto the trailer.......
Meanwhile, we shall begin sifting through the parts to determine what is salvagable and what must be replaced.
I know that this incident has shaken Gary up, despite putting on a brave front, but there is no doubt that Roll-cage played a significant role in making the outcome of this incident a whole lot better than it could have been. It is clear from looking at the car, that everything within the 'umbrella' of the Roll-cage is fairly straight, whilst the structure beyond that is clearly not.
For now, Gary wants to pass on his sincere appreciation to all those involved in helping to pick up the pieces, in particular Stuart and Little Chris for their efforts in getting the car apart upon returning from an already hectic weekend, but also to Kevin and Ben for their help. Also, BIG thanks to H-Tech for their prompt attention this morning. :-D
We will keep you posted as and when there is any further progress.
