A keen race fan has been left with a rare souvenir from the Bathurst 12 Hour after pole-sitter Charles Weerts crashed out of the race.
Weerts was battling for second position with just over seven hours left of the marathon race when he found himself facing traffic heading up the mountain and nearly flipped over the barrier at the Cutting.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: BMW almost flies over the fence at Bathurst 12 Hour.
Stream Supercars and more motorsport action live and free on 7plus >>
The Belgian attempted to pass on the outside of a GT4 Ginetta but tapped the slower car, sending his BMW spinning into and up on the outside wall.
“Up into the fence hard and almost over it, too!” Richard Craill said in commentary as live pictures only caught the end of the collision.
Head here to watch the Bathurst 12 Hour on demand on 7plus
Weerts’ destroyed BMW left a wheel loose on the track alongside significant debris.
Some of that debris made its way outside of the track, only to be found by one lucky race fan, who was snapped in a photo with the wing of the car.
The photo was posted on the Shakedown Facebook page.
“Went fishing at the Cutting.. Caught a beauty,” it was captioned.
But an exciting moment for the fan was a shattering one for Weerts, who slammed his door shut in frustration while his co-drivers Sheldon van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor were described as “disconsolate” after the race-ending crash.
Van der Linde and Vanthoor, whose brothers in rival cars benefitted from their DNF, declined pit-lane interviews with the broadcast team.
“They both said no, right now it’s not a time where they want to say things and regret saying things,” Shea Adam said.
Adam was in the WRT garage at the time of the crash and said “the uproar from the mechanics” was “quite the cacophony of sound”.
Weerts, who was taken to the medical centre for a check-up, had been due to pit soon and swap places with van der Linde.
Replays showed the Ginetta driver Colin White, tucked up on the inside wall, could not have done anything more to get out of the BMW’s way.
“That’s a low-percentage move there, even on a GT4,” John Hindhaugh said.
“He’s got to make a decision. Where’s Colin going to go? He’s up against the wall. Unless Scotty beams him up, that Ginetta isn’t going anywhere.”
Garth Tander said White “did everything right” and clearly “signalled its intentions of staying to the inside”.
“But just the smallest of contacts tripped the BMW up and so lucky it just ripped the top of the concrete fence and not up and over,” he said.
“We’ve seen that in that part of the racetrack in the past.”
The BMW hit the wall with such force that it moved a temporary fence and cut a camera cable.
The race resumed with the No.912 Porsche, driven by Laurens Vanthoor with Australian Matt Campbell and Ayhancan Guven, maintaining their lead.
MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi sat second in Team WRT’s sole remaining BMW.
Another safety car was called soon after when the Ginetta, now driven by Owen Hizzey, crashed out of the race.
– With Glenn Valencich