Adelaide Young Gun Secures HRT Commodore
Adelaide young gun Josh Kean will step into the Dunlop Series for V8 Supercars following the purchase of a Holden Commodore VE II from Walkinshaw Racing.
Kean, who finished runner-up in the 2012 Saloon Car national series, has competed this year in an ex-Team Dynamik Commodore in the V8 Touring Car Series for ex-V8 Supercars.
While his focus is on competing in the Dunlop Series next year, Kean will make a ‘toe in the water’ debut appearance at Winton on August 23-25 in the fifth round of the series.
“It’s all very exciting and happening a little bit earlier than we would have expected,” said Kean this week.
“Our aim was to move into the Dunlop Series in 2014 and we were working on securing a car for next year.
“But the more we looked at it, the more we figured it would be worthwhile to get involved in the series this year and start building my experience.
“We’ll do a handover day with Walkinshaw Racing at Winton either late this month or in August and aim to do some testing before we have our first race at Winton.
“Walkinshaw Racing have been great to deal with and will give us some support at Winton too, which is great considering it’s their home test track and their cars have done hundreds of laps there over the years.”
As a result of securing the ex-Holden Racing Team chassis, the 20-year-old mechanic – who works during the week at Adelaide BMW – will not continue in the V8 Touring Car Series and instead put all his energies into the Dunlop Series.
“We’ve run with THR Developments in the V8 Touring Car Series in the first three rounds of the year, but we’re certainly not cutting ties with them by not continuing in the series,” says Kean.
“We’ll run under their banner at the Winton Dunlop round and we’re also looking at the possibility of doing the Bathurst round.
“At this stage it’s all about doing laps and building my experience rather than worrying about what position we are running in.”
Kean has secured chassis WR 012 – last raced by James Courtney at Symmons Plains last year prior to the 2010 V8 Supercar Champion debuting a new car in Hamilton, New Zealand.
The car has featured in a range of memorable moments for HRT in recent years.
The same chassis finished third in the 2010 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 in a special one-off black and white 20th anniversary livery with Garth Tander and Cameron McConville driving.
It was driven by Will Davison in his final start with HRT in the 2010 Sydney 500 before James Courtney took it to victory in Abu Dhabi in 2011 in his first win for the factory Holden team.
Kean’s family has a deep connection to Holden and its motorsport history in Australia – his grandfather Vin heavily supported Peter Brock when he took over the Holden Dealer Team and established HDT Special Vehicles in 1980.
