O’Brien Racing Team Adelaide 500 Review

If you said to me last week that I’d be watching the start of the Porsche PAYCE Carrera Cup Australia Championship from the comfort of my lounge room at home, I would probably have asked what medications you were taking!!!  But that is exactly what occurred.

On Thursday morning 2 laps into the first practice session, the O’Brien Racing Porsche was facing the wrong direction sitting on the Adelaide Street circuit in very average condition the very unlucky recipient of an accident that occurred directly in front of me at the fastest corner on the Adelaide street circuit.

A fellow competitor had lost the rear end of his car entering the infamous turn 8 at Adelaide depositing fluid at the apex of the corner.  At 220 km/h there’s not much time to react and get the car out of the way.  The outcome of his car hitting the inside wall at turn 8 resulted in a huge accident violently firing him across the other side of the circuit head first into the concrete wall.  From that point on I was just driving into the scene of the accident hoping for a nice gap to drive through.  However the fluid left at the apex of the corner pitched the car into a spin and contact with his car inevitable.

The contact was to the front of the O’Brien Porsche which also broke both steering arms and the spewing engine water and coolant from the car making steering the car useless.  We were then hit in the rear by the car following causing substantial rear damage as well.

All of our cars have been named by our daughter Priya and ‘Brien’ is the first male we’ve had in our race car family.  ‘Brien’ was loaded into the truck and we headed for Melbourne on Thursday night, arriving at our workshop at home the next morning at 9.30am.  Rohan our Mechanic and I went and got some rest until 3pm Friday afternoon and got stuck into it, along with friend and fellow Supercars driver Garth Tander who messaged me virtually straight after the accident and offered to come over and give us a hand.

After 5 hours of solid work Rohan had removed the engine, gearbox and rear suspension and Garth and I had removed all of the crushed mess from the front of the car.  Saturday morning we loaded ‘Brien’ onto the trailer and had him at L.A Smash repairs (@l.a.auto.body) by 7.45 am.

So this weeks preparation is very different to what we were expecting!!!  On a good note, David Stevens, the driver of the Porsche that had the accident in front of me spent the night in Adelaide hospital and will be OK.

Unfortunately it also meant that I didn’t catch-up with our guests on Saturday and Sunday at the track.

Keep up with ‘Briens’ repairs and follow @obrienracingofficial and @steve_richo on Instagram.

Thanks for all of the nice messages.

Richo