SIMON Belcher is facing a race to get his car back on track after an accident at Thruxton left the Swindon racer in serious doubt if he will be able to complete the season.

During qualifying for the British Touring Car Championship in Andover Belcher was in a collision with Mike Bushell which saw the session get red-flagged and Belcher miss the three races on the Sunday.

Rounds 10, 11 and 12 are scheduled to take place at Oulton Park Island Circuit in Cheshire this coming weekend, but it will be a race against time for Belcher to get his car ready.

“I was on my first flying lap in qualifying and the other driver came out of the pit lane and instead of staying to the right hand side of the guideline, which divides the pit lane from the track he cut across and we collided with me going at 110mph,” explained Belcher.

“It was about 11.30pm that they decided that there was no way that they would be able to repair it and we ended up having to miss all three races on Sunday which was disappointing, especially as it was my home race being the closest one to Swindon.

“It kind of got worse from there.

“The more they stripped off the car the more issues they found.

“It actually twisted the shell of the car from the back right through to the front bolt-head so it is pretty expensive and these cars are in the region of £200,000, so it is a major setback for us.

“We just don’t have the budget to sustain accidents of that level.

“We’ve only got four weeks left until the next event and the shell is probably going to take three weeks to repair.

“We’ve got a great team of guys and they will give it their best shot but it is going to be tough from that point of view. It just gobbles up our budget for the season.

“We’ve got some great sponsors on board and that forms our budget, but we potentially haven’t got the money to compete until the end of the season, which is really disappointing for everybody.”

As a result of their small budget, Belcher and his team have launched a crowd funding initiative to help pay for the work, which has already raised £1,600.

He will also search for new sponsors and put signed car parts on Ebay to help get him back racing.

“The crowd funding works really work,” added Belcher.

“We had really bad accident last year and the fans really got behind us and helped us out last year to help us back.

“Last year I was blown away by the response. The British Touring Car fans are the best fans in the world and in the last couple of days we have raised £1,500 already.

“It is so difficult to tell whether we will be back in time for the next race, we will have a better idea about a week before the event.”

For details of the crowd funding visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/keep-simon-in-the-seat/?.