Vaulkhard’s car could be a write off

Harry Vaulkhard and Tempus Sport experienced their worst ever BTCC meeting, through a combination of illness and on track misfortunes sent the weekend off the rails, leaving the team with a badly damaged car.
“When the repair time will exceed the cost of building a new shell we will ‘write’ it off, but we won’t know that until Friday,” said Coleman to TouringCarTimes.com.

After being waylaid by food poisoning before the meeting, Vaulkhard was still suffering the after effects come qualifying on Saturday, but managed a very good sixth place for race one of the weekend.

Running fourth in the race, contact with Rob Collard at the chicane damaged the track rod ends, slowing the local driver and dropping him back into the clutches of Matt Neal, who passed the Chevrolet at Tower, before making a small error to allow Vaulkhard back in.

Contact was inevitable as the pair tried to run side-by-side through the Esses, with Vaulkhard exiting stage right onto the infield in a high-speed spin, causing further damage to the Lacetti.

A deflating right rear tyre then caused Vaulkhard to spin once more at the entry to the Complex, where his stricken car was collected by Tom Chilton’s Focus in a heavy accident, causing enough damage to rule the home driver out for the remainder of the day, something he was obviously disappointed with.

“The start of the race was great and we were soon in fourth and closing in on Plato in third ahead of me by two tenths per lap. I think I gave Rob plenty of space, but he pushed me wide at the exit and the steering was damaged and that slowed us.

The incident with Matt was one of those things in racing when we’re all fighting for the same piece of track. I feel for Tom, as he was an innocent party in the crash. It did a lot of damage to our car and I was winded. I’m now focusing on Snetterton.”

Speaking to the official series website, BTCC.net, Vaulkhard expanded on the damage to the Lacetti, saying:

“It’s knackered! The chassis and the roll cage are both gone and it will need a new shell, so it’s going to be quite a big job for the team.

It’s a bit of a nightmare for us, because we had quite a few potential sponsors who’d come to watch and then this.”

The man in charge of getting Vaulkhard back out on track at Snetterton in six weeks time is Tempus Sport Team Director, Richard Coleman, who confirmed to TouringCarTimes that the extent of the damage to the shell will be confirmed later this week.

“When the repair time will exceed the cost of building a new shell we will ‘write’ it off, but we won’t know that until Friday,” said Coleman to TouringCarTimes.com.

“The shell work could be around 250 man-hours, but the damage to the rest of the car isn’t too bad. We have some investigation work to carry out on the engine, but all fairly standard.

Sometimes in motor racing you have one of those weekends when nothing goes well, and this was one of them. We had great pace and Harry showed what he can do in the car, but then the rough and tumble of the BTCC came through. We’ve now got a car with a lot of damage and work to do, but fortunately there’s the summer break before the next race. It’s all hands on deck now.”