WAR OF WORDS CONTINUES

The war of words between Supercars outfits Erebus Motorsport and the single car Blanchard Racing Team continued post-race after ‘games’ were played in the final race of the Darwin Triple Crown.

The single car Blanchard Racing team outfit which shares its pit boom with the third Tickford Racing car of Jack Le Brocq is situated next to Erebus Motorsport.

In the final 38-lap affair BRT driver Tim Slade was racing with Erebus Motorsport driver Will Brown on track.

At the end of lap 5 Brown made his stop while Tim Slade came in a couple of laps later.

When Slade pitted, the Erebus Motorsport team were getting prepared for a pit stop that never occurred, forcing Slade to go the long way around the Erebus crew members and cost him crucial seconds.

BRT team manager Brendan Hogan was furious, certain that it was a deliberate ploy to give Brown track position, while Erebus team principal Barry Ryan pleaded innocent.

A war of words was exchanged between Ryan and the Tickford crew members during the race, and the battle continued as the BRT/Tickford crew returned the favour to Erebus when Brodie Kostecki pitted later on.

“He just set up to try and screw us over and yeah, I wasn’t real happy about it,” Hogan said after the race.

When asked if the argument is over or if there will be a chat behind closed doors, Hogan gave a frank assessment.

“He’ll be behind closed doors,” he said. “I haven’t spoken to him, you’ll just hear it on the grapevine, that’s how he operates.”

Likewise, Slade felt that it was a deliberate act, and as a result was very pleased to beat Brown to the finish line.

“It’s always harder to turn around the team that’s next to you that’s set up for no reason,” Slade said.

“It adds a little bit of time and I guess just coincidence that we were racing one of their cars and came out side by side with it at Turn 1,” he said sarcastically.

“It is good that we ended up beating them anyway.”

Ryan explained that he could see the BRT side, but put his case forward, saying on air that the crew were preparing for Kostecki’s pitstop.

“I didn’t start that,” he said. “They are just playing schoolyard games, they thought we were, but we weren’t.

“But if they want to play those games, we’ll keep playing them, but it’s silly and we don’t need that crap, we’ll just get on with it.

“Like I said to the boys, if someone starts a fight we are going to win it, and nothing changed, that’s racing.”

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