The four-time Bathurst winner was hitting speeds up to 190km/h in his first hit-out in the vehicle before it all came unstuck. "We went into a rut and hit a bank and gently rolled over on my side doing about 40km/h," Lowndes said as he surveyed the damaged vehicle at LandCruiser Mountain Park, Jimna, north-west of Brisbane.
He and his navigator, 13-time Safari veteran Kees Weel, were not injured in the incident, but the vehicle was retired for the day. Weel said Lowndes was quickly up to speed and was still one of the top chances to win the rally, even though it is his first off-road race.
"It's good to get a roll out of the way before the event," he said. "It's better than when we rolled out of the rally two years ago when we were leading it on the first day."
Lowndes said he wanted to go one better than his mentor, Peter Brock, who scored three second places in the Safari. With Weel's PWR Racing team now facing extensive repair work, Lowndes will now only get one more trial run in the car at Mildura, a couple of weeks before the rally starts in Perth on September 17.
"Up until the roll, it was going strong and I was getting used to the big torque of the engine and using a taller gear to pull out of the corners," Lowndes said. "So we got something accomplished today, but it's a shame it finished so early."
Weel said Lowndes had the ability to read the terrain and was "up to speed straight away". "In this event you don't win by seconds but by minutes and it comes down to preparation and who has the least amount of trouble out there," he said.
