JAMES Courtney has provided insight into how things played out from within the Team 18 garage last Sunday at the Bathurst 1000.
Of course it has been well-documented that the #18 DeWalt Camaro of Anton De Pasquale and Lee Holdsworth started the last lap in the box seat to win the Peter Brock Trophy, only to run out of fuel.
Roughly 5km from by far the biggest triumph in the squad’s history, elation turned to despair in the ultimate case of heartbreak.
“It was horrific,” Courtney, who co-drove the sister Snowy River Chevrolet, told V8 Sleuth.
“To be sitting there, beside Lee, and the emotions of those last couple of stints and how well they were doing. I even leant across to Lee and said ‘you’re going to be two-time here’.
“Especially when he took off after the Safety Car, and on that second-last run down Conrod – or his last – that’s when Adrian (Burgess) said to Charlie (Schwerkolt) that they’re going to have to pit or keep going.
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“For me, I was in shock. I had no idea that was happening and neither did Lee.
“We were working out how we were going to spend Sunday night. It was a huge shock to both of us.”
Team 18 has vowed to bounce back and has an immediate chance to do so at next week’s finals series opener on the Gold Coast, where De Pasquale enters as the seventh seed.
Courtney knows Schwerkolt and Burgess particularly well, the trio having combined for the 2010 championship.
“It means so much to them and you could see the emotion, both of them were crying. I think nearly all of the garage was. It was such a heavy blow for them,” Courtney noted.
“I think you see the calibre of the people in how they come back from stuff like this.”