Both Randle and Wood were on a charge from the back of the field in the third race of the weekend when they came to blows at Turn 5 while running 13th and 14th.
Randle was leading Wood as they both went under Macauley Jones into the right-hander, Wood then making direct contact with Randle’s rear bumper that sent him into the barriers.
The front-left damage took Randle out of the race, while Wood went on to finish 10th on the road but was demoted to 18th courtesy of a 30-second penalty for the contact.
After the race Wood made his way to the Tickford catering tent where he took full responsibility for the contact while apologising to Randle.
“I just feel stink for their crew and my crew,” Wood told Speedcafe.
“Until I see the onboard, I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t trying to pass him, I was just trying to file in. Thomas and I were both moving forward from the back.
“That’s why I feel stink. It’s cost them a lot of damage before he starts on the front row tomorrow.”
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While accepting of the apology, Randle didn’t hide his disappointment that a good recovery drive went begging.
“Disappointing is the way to sum it up,” he told Speedcafe. “I think Woody tried to go for a gap on Macaulay and then he’s just misjudged it and drilled me.
“I think it was just a bit of impatience from Ryan and it was unnecessary. I’m not really sure why he felt the need to do it or if he just misjudged it. But there was a long way to go in the race and we were tracking pretty good.
“So it’s annoying to come away with no points and a damaged Castrol Mustang.
“I just feel sorry for all the boys and girls having to spend tonight fixing the car. I mean, we race so late and it’s an early start tomorrow.”
Making matters worse, the Tickford crew had to wait until the end of the Carrera Cup race to get hold of the car which was stranded on the other side of the circuit.
Randle is set to start tomorrow morning’s fourth and final Supercars race from the outside of the front row, which he hopes he can convert into good points and a clean car.
“It’s sort of been chaos all throughout the field, but you would think theoretically, being up the front will be nicer,” he said.
“I’d love to have a clean race and score some really good points. It’d be nice to finish the weekend on high.”
This article first appeared on Speedcafe.com, a sister site to MotorRacing.com.
