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Kelly’s late season charge carries HRT into Phillip Island Grand Finale |
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Wednesday, 06 December 2006 |
A LATE season charge from the Holden Racing Team’s Todd Kelly has helped thrust the former Bathurst winner into contention for a top five finish in the V8 Supercar Championship Series, which wraps up this weekend at Phillip Island’s Grand Prix circuit.
After dropping as low as 18 th in the championship after round seven at
Oran Park in August, Kelly has gone on a blitz ever since with five
topfive finishes in a row, four of which have been podium results and
one being a round win on the Gold Coast.
Sitting seventh in the championship heading into the final round, the
#22 Commodore driver is a mathematical chance of leapfrogging into a
top five finish in the overall series.
“At the beginning of every season our focus is trying to win the
championship, but if there was a championship held over the last five
rounds I’d really like our chances!” Kelly said.
“To fight back from being in a pretty ordinary position in the series
and on the end of some pretty rotten luck, to now be visiting the
podium regularly, I can’t help but think what could have been in terms
of the championship.
“It makes me immensely proud of the team to fight back as well. It’s
really easy to drop your head and let the frustration take over, but we
have stayed focused and the recent results are an indication of that.
“Our car speed has been very strong for the past few months and we’ve
been quick from the minute practice has started with perhaps the
exception of Bahrain. But, as has been typical of our team of late, we
found our way and won the last race.
“Certainly I’ll be keeping an eye on what my brother Rick is up to this
weekend, but his championship aspirations won’t change the way I
approach my race weekend.”
Kelly’s HRT teammate Mark Skaife is a threetime round winner at Phillip
Island, which was the team’s official testing venue last year.
“The best we can hope for this weekend is to have a good solid weekend
and demonstrate clearly the sort of pace the red cars undoubtedly
have,” Skaife said.
“The red cars have been fast on plenty of occasions this year, but the
trophy cabinet doesn’t really reflect the sort of pace we’ve had.
“From a personal point of view, this recent run of bad luck I’ve been
having is just one of those things. Greg Chappell had a run of ducks
during his Test cricket career, so even the best have a bad trot. They
do, and will, eventually end.
“Being a former test track, there’s no doubt Phillip Island is a very familiar place for our team and cars.
“Having said that, we tested there last year and found completely
different weather conditions when we raced there and had no distinct
advantage over the opposition.
“So it will be a case of rolling the cars out on Friday and taking it from there to see who does the best job this weekend.”
Practice for the Grand Finale begins on Friday with one race on Saturday and two on Sunday.
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