Nissan, Tekno complete chassis rebuilds
Nissan Motorsport and Tekno Autosports have both confirmed that they have race-ready cars for Phillip Island after round-the-clock rebuild efforts since Tasmania.
Nissan Motorsports builds a new chassis for Rick Kelly
Nissan Motorsports
Nissan and Tekno were both hit with massive rebuild efforts after Will Davison’s Commodore and Rick Kelly’s Altima had a high-speed coming together during the 12-car melee at Symmons Plains a little under a fortnight ago.
Kelly’s car, which only debuted this season, was destroyed, the Nissan squad having to build up a spare chassis from nothing ahead of Phillip Island.
Tekno, meanwhile, repaired Davison’s ‘Lola’ chassis despite the extensive damage.
For both teams it meant round-the-clock work over the Easter break, Kelly hailing the Nissan crew’s work as ‘amazing’.
“We knew we had a spare chassis, we knew we had the equipment to fix the car, and we certainly have the guys to fix it,” said Kelly. “But changing Easter plans and working day and night is a difficult situation.
“To see how the guys reacted to it and got it done really shows the calibre of the staff we have here. To have the car ready to race is nothing short of amazing. It’s a real credit to those guys and something I’m incredibly grateful for.
"It was very inspiring to see the car progress from a bare chassis to what we’ll race on the weekend. Building a race car is not a simple task. Obviously, everything is handcrafted and build at the factory here, so to create enough components and replenish all your spares is a big job.
“To piece a bare chassis together into a full race car in such a short amount of time is incredible to watch. Every day I’d walk in and see such amazing progress."
Kelly added that with the hard physical work behind them, the team now has to focus on putting the Tasmanian dramas behind them.
"It’s a big job now, as well, to put that behind us and hit Phillip Island not thinking about the incident or what chassis we’re in,” said the 2006 champion.
“Because we missed that race on Sunday we took a big hit in points. We’ve got a very big job in front of us and it’s a critical time to put the rebuild behind us and focus on delivering a result at Phillip Island and moving forward."
Tekno rebuild never in doubt
Earlier this week Davison, who is hopeful of being fit enough to race this weekend despite recovering from a back injury sustained in the crash, heralded Tekno’s work as ‘inspirational’.
The Queensland-based team managed to have the car finished in time for it to be transported to Melbourne on Tuesday night, and despite the tight turnaround brand manager Chris McCormack says the rebuild was never really in doubt.
“You never want to see your car in a crash of this severity, but it is humbling to see the support from people within the motorsport community and the sheer single-mindedness of our small team to get the car back on track,” he said.
“Without sounding arrogant, we never considered not having the car available for Phillip Island.
“Triple 8 and [chassis builder] PACE have been instrumental in having the car ready for Phillip Island. Their involvement also gives us complete confidence that the car is ready to return to the top end of the field in the remainder of 2017.”
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