Jack Perkins damaged car

Jack Perkins and Nathan Pretty, pilots of the number 11 Jack Daniel’s Racing Commodore, will be forced to sit on the sidelines during practice this afternoon.

Perkins was driving in the second practice session at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 this morning when he had an accident across the top of the Mountain.

Practice two was red flagged for 10 minutes while a tow truck removed the Commodore, which will not return to the track today due to the damage.

Jack Daniel’s Racing Team Manager, Joe Bremner, described it as a “reasonable size hit”.

“It was all stuff that we can replace,” he told BigPond Sport.

“It hasn’t bent any of the chassis or anything.”

But Bremner said the diff, the Watt’s linkage and the suspension were all bent.

“We will be working on it over night,” he said.

“We will be fine to go for tomorrow but we won’t get back out there today.”

A visibly upset Perkins, who this weekend is doing driver duties in the Championship Series along with his normal Fujitsu Series ride, said he simply stuffed up.

“There is a little bit of difference from the Mack car (in the Fujitsu Series) to the Jack Daniels car, but there is no excuse really, I just stuffed up,” he said.

“It’s a big set back for the team and for Nathan, even for myself; I robbed myself of a few laps.

“Nathan is great… I am just really sorry that I have cost him some laps as well.

“Nathan did a great job this morning.”

Perkins commented on the number of accidents that occur at the Mount Panorama circuit.

“Just about everyone has crashed here and now I have… I’ll just get on with it,” he said.

One person who was on the other end of the spectrum during practice was Holden Racing Team driver Garth Tander.

He posted the very first sub-2:10 minute lap of the day, with a 2:09.6739 on his first fast lap and went on to better it on lap six with a 2:09.3700.

Despite having the fasted lap of the morning, Tander said he wasn’t really pushing it.

“We need to keep working on it but the car was good out of the box and when it’s good out of the box it gives you a bit of confidence to push on,” he said.