WHEN Damien Flack pulled to the right side of the track as he raced down Conrod Straight on Saturday morning, it was with an Aussies Racing Cars podium in mind.

But instead of going on to claim a top three finish in the second race of the category’s Bathurst round, Flack and his Euro GT chassis car were involved in a horror crash that resulted in the driver being airlifted to Liverpool hospital.

After Flack copped a nudge from behind from his brother Adrian, his car immediately tipped up on two wheels. It was on its roof as it hit the left wall, then flipped more than 10 times through the air before landing over the fence and having what was left of it burst into flames.

Marshals were quick to attend and reported that Flack was conscious and talking. After being inspected by on-track medical staff, he was flown by helicopter to hospital with suspected broken ribs and punctured lung.

The incident saw the race red flagged and declared void.

Adam Uebergang, who was leading the race at the time of the incident, said he first became aware that something was wrong when he saw marshals furiously waving red flags.

“I didn’t see a single thing until I saw the replay on TV,” he said.

“That would have been at about 212-215 kays or something like that, we are going pretty fast. I think what they were trying to do was work together to try and pass someone, but it went wrong.

“You can tell how bad it is by how the officials wave the flags, when I saw them going crazy doing that I knew.”

Michael Rinkin was further back in the field at the time, and while he also did not see the incident, he did see parts of Flack’s Euro GT strewn on the side of the track as he came down Conrod Straight.

“I was a bit far back so all I saw was the rubbish and the flames,” he said.

“Someone gave him a bump, it’s pretty unfortunate. But the cars are really well built, they are good.

“It shook up my wife [Gina], she was watching me for this round, but she doesn’t want to watch anymore now.

“You just have to drive to where your safety limits are. You know we go out there for a good time, we go out there to have fun, we don’t want to hurt ourselves.

“Those guys at the front are very fast drivers and both the Flacks are professional drivers, they race Porsches, so they know what they are doing. They can both handle this category, but I guess that’s living on the edge.” 

Prior to the horror crash, the racing had been typical of the category with cars running three, four and even five wide and plenty of moves happening all over the grid.

Queenslander Uebergang had started seventh on the grid with race one winner Maurice Masini on pole.

But there was a big shuffle in the pack after they went four wide into turn one. It resulted in Uebergang taking the lead ahead of Dennis Chamberlin, who had started in sixth.

Masini got jostled back to ninth while series leader Brendon Pingel, who had started alongside him on the front of the grid, was the eighth man up the mountain.

Damien Flack had initially lost positions as well after starting in fourth, but had worked his way up into third by the end of the second lap.

His bid to further improve that came to an end not long after.

“It is a very somber start to this morning,” commentator and three-times Bathurst 1000 winner Mark Skaife said.

“The forces are so high that once it gets momentum, it obviously rolled many times.”