Supercars rookie Jaxon Evans has managed to walk away from a shocking crash that forced an abrupt end to Sunday’s final qualifying and raised questions over the safety of Adelaide’s street circuit.
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Evans was left clearly shaken and dazed after he lost control of his Brad Jones Racing Camaro and slammed into the wall at an estimated 240km/h.
The impact of the collision forced a wheel from the car completely before a second shunt ensured the front end of the Camaro was ripped away.
It was a remarkable near “carbon copy” of Friday’s crash that left Penrite’s Richie Stanaway ruled out of the final two races with concussion.
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Supercars great Mark Skaife was left stunned by the scenes at the Adelaide 500 – with Evans the fourth Supercars driver to find trouble at Turn 8 this weekend.
“That is absolutely one of the biggest shunts we have seen here!” he said on Fox Motorsport.
“From those forces … obviously he was winded.
“Couldn’t get out of the car for a little while.
“If you had to compare it to any of the previous incidents, that was almost a direct replica of the Stanaway one.
“That is just a monstrous shunt.”
Debate over the safety of Turn 8 followed the Evans crash, with both Skaife and fellow Supercars great Garth Tander calling for something to be done.
“Let’s not change the architecture at Turn 8 … let’s just open up the margin of error a little bit,” Tander said.
“We need to find a balance of moving that Armco back, but also not encouraging the drivers that they are going to go 15km/h faster through there because they are going to jump over a kerb. That’s the challenge.
“Maybe it is time to revise and have another look.”
“I think on that inside kerb is take the black out of it… so it should just be red and white,” Skaife followed.
“Where those shadows were the other day, I reckon that absolutely caught them out in differentiating between the black shadowed area of the bitumen and the kerb itself, just in terms of your sight line.
“I think that would make a difference.
“We know that’s a really wild corner.
“We know what the consequence is (if you get it wrong) and that it’s really unforgiving.”
Pit lane reporter Mark Larkham said he’d put his hand up to fix the barrier that all four drivers clipped before slamming into the Turn 8 wall.
“We’ve got to do something to the Armco (metal barrier),” he said on Fox Motorsport.
“It’s got to be moved back away from the kerb.
“The kerb itself has to be the deterrent, not the Armco.
“Even in the interim … I would go out there and paint the piece of Armco that everyone is hitting with fluro paint.
“I think there’s some little steps we could do immediately to just help.
“It’s clearly a problem when we have crashes like this happen for all exactly the same circumstance.
“We did $300,000-odd damage to the three cars the day before (on Friday). There’s probably another $150,000 there (to Evans’ car).
“Add to that all the years since we’ve been coming here since ‘99 – the amount of crashes, millions and millions and millions of dollars.”
It was a devastating end to the Adelaide 500 for Evans, who had managed his first top 10 shootout on Saturday.
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“I’m obviously feeling a little bit shaken up after that – never nice to be the one that ends up in the fence, especially here at turn 8,” he told Fox Motorsport.
“Thankfully I’m OK.
“Little bit winded, but otherwise happy to walk away from that one.
“We were putting everything on the line.
“I just caught the inside fence which put me into the outside fence … From there on you’re a passenger.
“Just felt like I was ping-ponging off the walls.”
Tander could sympathise with the young Kiwi, who headed into this final round on a high after securing a second season with BJR.
“Great to see Jaxon get out of the car,” he said.
“You go into this moment of disbelief … you get obviously dazed and confused. (Thinking) ‘What just happened? Oh my god, I’ve just had a very big crash!’
“That thing will definitely not run today and might not run again.”
Team boss Brad Jones said his team were up for a “challenge” in a bid to get Evans’ Camaro back on track in time for the final race.
“Just unfortunate he’s clipped that inside kerb,” he said.
“It’s put him in the outside wall pretty hard.
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“My wallet probably needs resuscitating,” Jones joked.
“That front hit was really hard … I think time will be totally against us.
“My guys are always up for the challenge.”
The Evans crash saw an early end to qualifying – as a result Red Bull Racing’s Broc Feeney will be on provisional pole, ahead of Cam Waters.
Young Kai Allen was given the green light to replace Stanaway for the final event after being knocked back by officials for Saturday’s penultimate race.
He managed to make it inside the top 20.
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