It was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time during the recent IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship event around the streets of Detroit for the #90 Visit Florida Racing team, when Renger van der Zande was hit by the #75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes of Kenny Habul in turn three.
Habul had suffered apparent brake failure, which left him heading straight to the scene of the accident, however van der Zande was unfortunate to be in his way, with the two suffering a big crash that caused a lot of damage to both cars.
Troy Flis, team boss of Visit Florida Racing, admitted that he was angry that his car was eliminated from the race but was happier after Habul visited the team afterwards to explain his side of the story and apologise for the incident.
“It was nice of him to come over and apologize to say it was his fault. Sometimes you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we’ve been there multiple times this year,” said Flis to RACER.
“We’ve been having a bad year, but we’ve been sad to see him getting a bad rap from what he said was a mechanical failure on his car. It was probably good for him that he was able to use our car to slow down a little instead of going right into the barriers.
“But we have no beef with Kenny. We just can’t get the breaks we need, and I hate seeing him get beaten up on social media. Sometimes you wish people get beaten up there, but this isn’t one of them.”
Flis revealed that Habul offered to pay for the repairs of the Riley, but he declined the offer, and he insists there are no hard feelings between them and Habul going forward.
“It’s not normal for someone to offer to do that after a crash, and it’s a nice gesture he made,” said Flis. “We know crashes are part of the game, so we wouldn’t expect him to cover those costs. He also has his car to fix.
“These cars are expensive, and it’s probably going to cost us between $100,000 to $200,000 when all is said and done to get our car turned around for Watkins Glen. We’ll put this to bed and definitely don’t have any hard feelings for Kenny or his team at all.”
