EREBUS prodigy Jarrod Hughes is racing the clock to be fit for arguably the most important week of his young motorsport career.

Hughes was the unlucky victim of a bone-rattling Super2 crash yesterday at Queensland Raceway, after Mason Kelly lost control of his #22 Mustang and ploughed into the #118 Commodore at Turn 3.

Hughes was taken to Ipswich Hospital for X-rays; he was cleared before being released last night.

“Sore and sorry and disappointed. I guess that’s the best way to put it,” he told V8 Sleuth.

“No breaks or fractures, just a pretty stuffed up shoulder, like bruised maybe some ligaments in there.

“It hurts a lot but overall considering the size of that shunt, it’s actually not too bad.”

Pic: Ross Gibb

Hughes missed the Sunday race but that’s the least of his worries, given he wasn’t in title contention after a tough start to the season for all three Image/Erebus entries.

More pressing are a couple of fixtures at QR in the next seven days.

First is a critical enduro pre-season test, where co-drivers are set to do the bulk of laps to get up to speed ahead of The Bend 500 and Bathurst 1000. Hughes’ main game debut will come at the former, sharing the #9 Camaro with Jack Le Brocq.

Then, next weekend Hughes will achieve a boyhood dream to team up with Craig Lowndes, in the TA2 Tag Team enduro. Hughes is the TA2 series leader.

Jarrod Hughes (right) with Craig Lowndes. Pic: Supplied

“Right now I would be saying to myself no, but hopefully tomorrow we should become a little bit better,” he said of the Tuesday test.

“Tuesday is a big focus, even if I don’t do as many laps as we initially planned, just to get something because I haven’t actually really done that much proper running in the car.

“I have done ride days and a little test at the start of the year but I haven’t actually done too much proper running, so if I can get Tuesday under my belt, maybe Wednesday I might have to palm the rides off to Jack.

“And then we have got next weekend with the TA2 as well. So it couldn’t have happened on a much worse week to be honest with you, coming up to a good week that I needed to focus on and really do some good laps and get some good experience.

“I’ll just look after it as best as I can and see what we can do.”