Motorsport: McDonald out to make up for lost time

Jamie McDonald had a big crash at Vodafone Springs Speedway Opening Night. Photo / James Selwyn Photos

Auckland sprint car racer Jamie McDonald will be looking to make up for lost time and push his case for New Zealand selection at Saturday night's Auckland Champs at Vodafone Speedway Western Springs.

McDonald was the big casualty on opening night earlier this month with a massive crash taking him out during the second heat of the night.

"We have a brand new race car this year with a different type of frame and it was all going good," McDonald told The Herald.

"We got second in the first heat and then in the second heat we were running in fourth and the three cars tangled in front of me and I literally had nowhere to go and we went straight into the middle of it and flipped over the top end and destroyed just about everything but the engine, the seat and the steering wheel."

The crash took him out of the rest of the night and resulted in a "massive" fix to be ready for this weekend.

"It was two weeks to get it done and my parts bill is $25,000 already," McDonald said. "We got it done and we are all ready to go."

Not only did the incident take him out of the running but it didn't give him the opportunity to press his claims for New Zealand selection for the upcoming international meets.

"Fortunately they take previous performance and pedigree into account so that is probably in our favour but I definitely need a good run on Saturday night," McDonald said.

"The reality is if we finished where we finished in that heat race we would have qualified on the front row for the feature on opening night.

"It is what it is and I have to race hard and if they decide they want me in there I will be in there."