Troy Flis and his Visit Florida Racing team were left with a repair bill somewhere north of $100,000 after being crashed out of the Chevy Sports Car Classic IMSA race in Detroit last weekend. Speared by Kenny Habul, team owner/driver of the No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, the right side of VFR’s Riley/Multimatic Mk 30-Gibson LMP2 prototype was used as an impact barrier as the Australian barreled into the Turn 3 brake zone.

Both cars were out on the spot, VFR driver Renger van der Zande was uninjured, and Habul climbed from his car in a much better state than the big Benz. Flis, angry at the time of the impact, quickly changed his tune after Habul paid a visit to his transporter.

“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,” Flis told RACER.

After suffering brake failure in practice and destroying a carbon fiber monocoque at Long Beach in April, VFR missed the race and went through an expensive rebuild to make the next round at Circuit of The Americas. It helps to explain the sensitivity Flis has toward a second significant hit in less than two months, but Habul’s gracious tone quieted the situation.

“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,” Flis added. “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.”

Habul also offered to pay for all the repairs needed for the No. 90 VFR prototype, but Flis declined.

“It’s not normal for someone to offer to do that after a crash, and it’s a nice gesture he made,” he said. “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.”

Habul was placed on a three-race probation by IMSA in the wake of the Detroit incident.