The concrete walls that line the Armor All Gold Coast 600 track are unforgiving, immoveable objects that take many weeks to be packed away by an army of men and their heavy industrial cranes many days after the event.

They’re heavy and their cumbersome.

And it takes a great deal more than one errant V8 Ute to shift one.

None the less, Brad Patton did his level best to shove one of the blocks that makes up the wall with his once pristine WICKED / CHILL XR8 Falcon.

Sadly, the wall refused to budge and the impact was significant to Brad’s pride and joy.
In fact, it’s all but a complete write off.

“I got into the wall coming out of a tight left handed hairpin corner,” recalls Brad, “and because we had so many Utes still behind us and so many in front there wasn’t really anywhere to go. We had a head on impact with the wall and then a massive shunt from behind from the long line of cars behind us. The poor old car is in bad shape.”

It’s so bad in fact that Big Gun Team Manager Joe De Vries isn’t sure just what to do next.

“The car’s horrendous,” he frowns, “I think a banana would be straighter than this. It really bore the brunt of the impact when it was hit from behind while still jammed into the wall with the bonnet. We’re attempting to fix it right now but my gut feeling is this might be too much for even us to recover from.”

Brad Patton himself is philosophical about the situation, looking back on it.

“At the end of the day I’m glad I could get out and walk away from the crash so in effect the car did its job. I just hope we can get something done in time for Sydney. We’re all fingers crossed,” he says.

Peter Burnitt had no such issues, thankfully.

Burnitt kept the CNW Electrical / Team Kanga XR8 Falcon out of harm’s way and in the fast lane for most of the weekend.

“We improved on the previous round at Bathurst that’s for sure,” smiles Burnitt, “and at a place like the Gold Coast you can get in trouble without even meaning to, as poor old Brad found out. I was happy to bring the car home without any major damage and get some good laps in around a very challenging track.”

Indeed the Armor All Gold Coast 600 event is perhaps a good build-up to the Sydney Telstra 500 event at Homebush, which is coincidentally the final round of the 2010 Yokohama
V8 Ute Series.

Ironically the Homebush event will feature legendary American hard rockers “Guns and Roses” on the Saturday night of the December 3-5 weekend.

“Guns and Roses” sounds considerably softer than the “Big Guns and Bruises” combination we suffered at the Gold Coast.

Ends release…