It’s been costly but Tickford Racing have got a replacement Supercar ready for Ford star Chaz Mostert ahead of this weekend’s Sandown 500.
Mostert wrote off his Supercheap Auto Mustang during Saturday’s shootout at the Gold Coast 600, sidelining him and co-driver James Moffat for both races at the event.
With the $250,000 chassis an unrepairable wreck, Tickford have spent the past fortnight getting a new car ready for the final endurance event of the year.
Team boss Tim Edwards said a spare Mustang used as a wildcard by Thomas Randle at The Bend earlier this year had been converted into Mostert’s car for the remainder of 2019.
“Any time you flush a quarter of a million dollars down the drain it’s never a nice feeling,” Edwards told AAP.
“Aside from the financial side of it, there’s a lot of work to replace all that stuff.
“Yes, there’s the chassis itself but all the other parts that bolt to that chassis that were damaged; that’s a huge amount of work for our machine shop, fabricators and composites.
“It’s been a big week, the guys on that car have sort of worked through most of the weekend just to get it as they’d like but they’re all ready to go now.”
Mostert’s non appearance in both Gold Coast races has cost him any chance of a top three finish in this year’s championship.
With the 27-year-old heavily linked to a move to Holden’s Walkinshaw Andretti United next year, Mostert will have a new goal heading into his final two events for the Ford team.
“We’ll still try and salvage something from the year and obviously our main priority is to secure third in the teams’ championship,” Edwards said.
“We’re currently in third and fourth with our two pairings with Erebus in fifth and they’d dearly love to be in third, that’s our focus at the moment.”