Before the start of Sunday’s Bathurst 1000, Brad Jones Racing was in line to achieve greatness.

The team’s three Holdens occupied half of the top six grid spots after each posted impressive times during qualifying on Saturday.

But that meant little two hours into the 1000km epic.

Dale Wood’s campaign ended abruptly on lap 46 when he ran up the back of the Commodore of teammate Andrew Jones, co-driving for Jason Bright.

Wood was caught out by a slowing pack running behind a safety car near the top of the mountain.

The impact destroyed the front of Wood’s car, which caught fire soon after, and caused significant damage to the rear of Jones’ No.8 entry.

Both ended up back in the garage prematurely.

“It’s pretty disappointing,” said Bright, who won at Bathurst in 1998.

“Dale obviously didn’t the call where the safety car was. It’s blind across the the top there. Very disappointing.”

Coincidently, the safety car was called after a kangaroo made its way on track and was struck by BJR’s third and fastest entry driven by Fabian Coulthard and Luke Youlden.

Youlden reportedly clipped the roo, but suffered minimal damage and was able to continue the race.

The co-driver had earlier beached the No.14 Commodore in the sand trap at the end of The Chase, considered the fastest corner in the world for touring car racers.

The incident cost them crucial time, but they managed to rejoin the lead lap under the safety car.

Coulthard set a new lap record in qualifying on Friday, clocking two minutes, 5.6080 seconds on the new surface at Mount Panorama.