Marshalls attend the wreckage of the Bundaberg Red Racing Holden of Fabian Coulthard after crashing heavily on the opening lap during the Bathurst 1000. Photo / Getty Images
BATHRUST -It's the amusement park ride from hell.
Thrashing down Conrod Straight in the opening lap of Sunday's Bathurst 1000 at 290km/h and Fabian Coulthard's Holden loses control and begins tumbling over and over at the slight kink in the straight known as the Chase.
The result was as spectacular
as it was terrifying, Coulthard's Bundy Red Commodore shredding panels as it barrel-rolled end-over-end in a spray of dirt and debris.
Thankfully while the car was wrecked, Coulthard walked away unhurt but he admits it was a hairy moment.
"I was still flat-out so it was 290km/h plus ... better than any ride at Dreamworld," the New Zealander told reporters on Sunday.
"That was pretty full-on, that's the biggest shunt I've ever had in my career.
"What do you do? It's going to happen at some point. I'm just lucky to walk away from it."
The incident that resulted in Coulthard's spectacular failure actually occurred right at the race's start, when a slow start by a car in front resulted in contact with Jason Bargwanna's Holden.
That damaged a valve on the tyre and when Coulthard slammed on the brakes at the end of Conrod, his left rear tyre simply shredded and sent him careering out of control.
"Zero warning. I've just arrived at the Chase and the car's just swapped ends on me basically and I've just been barrel-rolling from there on in after," he said.
"It happens pretty quick, you're waiting for it to end. I knew I was on my head and it was barrel-rolling multiple times, you just wait for it to finally do its course and finally stop.
"The fact that I didn't have to open the door to get out, I knew that there were a few things missing.
"Obviously once you get out and have a bit of a look around there's bits of things everywhere.
"It's not the best position to be in but the thing that's important is I'm 100 per cent okay."
Coulthard's Bundy Red Racing team will now face a race against time to get the Kiwi back on track in two weeks' time for the next stop on the V8 Supercars calendar - the Gold Coast 600.
"Having only two weeks makes it pretty hard but the boys do their thing and they do it well and I'm sure they'll have a car ready for me in a couple of weeks," he said.
- AAP
