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Skaife & Kelly raring to go at Bathurst |
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Tuesday, 02 October 2007 |
NOW fully recovered from their Sandown woes, Holden Racing Team gun duo Mark Skaife and Todd Kelly are fit and raring to go for the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 this weekend. Skaife has fully recuperated from the appendicitis operation that ruled him out of the Sandown 500, while Kelly suffered debilitating gastric flu during his driving stints.
Kelly spent 48 hours in bed subsequent to the event and now claims he’s “feeling like a brand new unit”. For Skaife, not being around at Sandown has fired him up big time.
“It’s the first race I’d missed in 12 years and in some ways it was a reality check,” said Skaife.
“You get a different perspective on what is happening in the team rather than being caught up in the moment, and that will be beneficial for our Bathurst strategies.
“Despite the operation, at this stage of the season you’d expect my fitness levels to be perfect.”
Skaife added “Todd drove excellently at Sandown and there’s a real advantage in pairing up our ‘A’ team.
It gives you added flexibility and the opportunity to change our game plan on the run if required.
“There’s nothing locked in regarding qualifying and the race start as we’ll see how the weekend unfolds and make decisions accordingly.
Whoever is going the best will get thes job.”
Skaife admitted to unfinished business as to the drama that unfolded for HRT at Bathurst last year.
“We had such a great lead up then everything went wrong on the day,” he said.
“This year our car speed has been strong at all circuits and with some judicious tuning and tweaking we see Bathurst as being no different.”
Kelly was equally optimistic.
“The last time I drove with Skaifey was with us winning at Mt. Panorama in 2005.
We will be as prepared as we can this time around and if everything falls into place we would have to be half a chance.”
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