Victor Bray and his long time friend Peter Kapiris will be hoping they aren't so close next weekend at Perth Motorplex following a wild encounter during qualifying for the Australian Nationals.
Bray and Kapiris collided during the second session of qualifying (check out the video below) when Kapiris experienced a major clutch failure and fire, sending him blindly into the other lane and the driver’s side door of Bray’s Sidchrome Chev.
“Peter and I have been friends for 30 years, but I can tell you I did not ever intend to get that close to him!” laughed Victor.
“Following a good opening run we set out for the second round with a set-up aimed to get that five second ‘hoo doo’ off our back, but disaster struck and that was it for that run.
“Thankfully both Peter and I were totally okay but unfortunately a fair bit of work to the car was required and despite our promising first round we were not able to make it into the eliminations field this weekend.
“Even so, it was a great weekend. I am very happy with the progress of the car, the crowd was really strong and it was great to be able to see Benny have a good start to his season.”
Victor’s harrowing second round of qualifying came after a strong 6.05 second pass, however the final round saw his front tyres jump the beams for a disallowed time and a position outside of the field along with five-time champion John Zappia.
On the other side of the Team Bray pit area Ben was having a better weekend, qualifying in fifth position with a 5.95 second pass.
From there it was onto eliminations, with ‘The Kid’ winning over Andrew Sutton but then going down to Kapiris in the semi finals.
“With everyone struggling with the track and the weather threatening it was great to secure my spot in the eliminations field and face-off against Sutton and Kapiris on race day,” said Ben Bray.
“What a fairytale ending for Kapiris following the incident with Dad the night prior, he certainly did turn it around.
“It was a solid first round for us for the season, and our attentions now turn to Perth for the Goldenstates.”
For more information on the Goldenstates at Perth Motorplex, click here.