With a landmark Bathurst 6 Hour victory in sight on Sunday afternoon, the wheels quite literally fell off for Orange’s Tim Leahey and his partner Beric Lynton.
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After Leahey recorded production car racing’s fastest Bathurst lap in practice on Friday and then stormed to pole position by setting a new BMW M3 benchmark, he and Lynton raced in their own world in the opening stages of Sunday’s race.
They blew out to a 20-second lead early before a crash at Forrest’s Elbow and the resulting red flag brought them back to the pack. Although they lost some crucial time when the car came to a stop into turn three as well, Leahey and Lynton were able to push back into the lead late in the race.
But then, with just 20 minutes left to hold on for, disaster struck at Skyline.
The right rear wheel broke free, incredibly making its way all the way to Forrest’s Elbow but cruelly ending Leahey and Lynton’s until-then stunning run through the race.
Their demise allowed Grant and Iain Sherrin, who had also held the lead at different stages of the race, to steal the win with a late surge, the former steering their BMW M4 from fourth to first in the final green flag period.
Their victory helped the duo cast aside their own mechanical failure demons from 2017.
Brett Strom and Daren Jorgensen won a thrilling fight for second place in their BMW M Coupe ahead of Steven Johnson, Rob Woods and Marcel Zalloua’s Mercedes A45 AMG.
“It was really emotional. We’ve been coming here for quite a long time now,” Iain Sherrin said.
“We started off in E class and we had a victory there a long time ago. We’ve never cracked that outright.”
“It’s been a long time coming and a lot of hard work.
“First it was the [BMW] 135 and now the M4 and we’ve finally got there.”
While it was undeniably unfortunate for Leahey and Lynton, Grant Sherrin labelled the safety car period that their mishap led to – the 11th of the race – as “a blessing”.
It forced the race into an 11-minute dash to the line which was initially led by Strom, but the Sherrins had made back lost time from a drive through penalty too.
Strom’s lead, ultimately, was short-lived as Grant Sherrin shot from fourth to first in just five minutes, pulling away in the closing laps.
“The last safety car was a blessing. We pulled a rabbit out of the hat there,” Grant Sherrin said, giving his pit crew plenty of credit too.
“The team did a fantastic job today in the pits. They didn’t miss a beat.”
BMW has now taken out all three editions of the Bathurst 6 Hour, through Nathan Morcom and Chaz Mostert in 2016 and Luke Searle and Paul Morris in 2017, before Sunday’s win.
