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‘Phenomenal’ recovery by Triple Eight crew at Thruxton

11th May 2017
Last weekend’s BTCC race at Thruxton saw plenty of unexpected ‘turns’ and some big developments in the leaderboard. For one driver, this race proved to be more dramatic than the others – RCIB Racing sponsored Daniel Lloyd experienced a car crash that almost ended his round. However, an absolutely incredible performance by the Triple Eight mechanical crew meant that Lloyd was able to be back in his car within 90 minutes of the accident taking place.

A spokesman for the team said: “As a result of contact with another competitor, Daniel’s MG was forced off the circuit at the highest speed corner and into a crash barrier. The barrier took over an hour to repair, but that was nothing compared to the damage on the car!

“After an impact in excess of 130mph, the damage to the car was severe and it was touch and go as to whether or not the car could be repaired. The Triple Eight crew examined the entire vehicle with minute detail, all the while being obsessed with safety.

“If the car was damaged to the extent where it would be unsafe to repair it and send it out for the next race, it would not have been repaired.”

A decision had to be made whether the staff are good enough, and whether the equipment carried by the team on site are also extensive enough to repair the car. In total, just under 90 minutes were available to totally rebuild the car and it was clearly a phenomenal effort from the whole crew that made Lloyd’s third race possible.

“The chassis suffered severe damage which was welded up on site by the team’s fabricator. Both front and rear sub-frames were also replaced. The engine and gearbox were all removed and replaced with our spares, after an impact that great the team took no chances on reusing the engine that was involved in the crash.

“There are few teams in the paddock with the resources and experience to repair a car that quickly which is so badly damaged. Luckily Triple Eight have an amazing crew of lads with buckets of experience. This was simply seen as a challenge, and one that they smashed it out the ballpark,” the spokesman added.

Chief mechanic of Triple Eight, Paul Hartley describes the chaos of the repair: “I knew from what I had seen on TV that it was bad. Before the car even got back to the garage, I had every part I knew we needed laid out on the floor ready to go.

“I’ve been with Triple Eight the whole time they’ve raced the MG’s and I have never had to repair one that badly damaged before. The whole crew were amazing, both Number ones were flat out on the car and somehow between us, it rolled out for race 3.”

Lloyd finished with ‘not classified’, however, he is extremely pleased with an amazing effort from the entire team and is now simply looking forward to getting back on track.