Jason Bright is counting the cost of a heavy accident during the V8 Supercar Challenge at Surfers Paradise after seeing his damage bill fo💦r the s💙eason hit the $500,000 mark.

Aside from the financial implications, the incident in the opening race of the weekend on the Gold Coast has left his Fujitsu Racing team with💝𝓀 a battle to prepare for the next round of the season in Bahrain early next month.

Bright's 📖Ford Falcon, along with the associate൩d equipment has to be delivered to Avalon Airport outside Geelong this coming Saturday at 9am.

To try and hit that deadlinﷺe, the Fujitsu Racing team took the decision to withdraw from last Sunday's racing and had the car sent directly to a specialised panel beater in Brisbane. That work was completed late Sunday, when the team loaded the car onto the transporter and headed back to Melbourne.To give the crew four days of preparation in the workshop, the team also contracted a second driver to partner regular truck driver Mark Beveridge and guarantee it returned on Monday evening.

"Racing is an expensive game, but we didn't anticipate a damage bill this high," Bright admitted. "Big hits in Perth, Bathurst and on the Gold Coast have alone equated to 70 per cent of the total damage bill. Plus we run a second car for Alan Gurr and IRWIN Industrial Tools which has also had its fair share 🔜of hits.

"The damage bill clearly hurts, but it's more about giving the crew enough time to properly prepare for Bahrain. In this game you can't do 🥃things by halves. That will mean the guys will work pretty much without rest to m♎ake sure everything is delivered this weekend.

"Being a modern Formula One circuit the Bahrain International Circuit has a lot of great features and facilities. I♑t's pretty hard on tyres, but we feel that our car will be a good package on the track.

"Defending my♑ title from last year will be a tough ask. However, a strong overall perforജmance could bring us a finish well inside the top ten."