Kelly excited to reprise role with TEN

Jack Daniel's Racing's Rick Kelly is excited to be back on double duties at the July 10-12 Castrol EDGE Townsville 400, as he jumps behind the wheel of his V8 Supercar and in front ofthe camera for his duties with Network TEN.

Kelly provides expert commentary around the V8 Supercars session, and really enjoyed the extra involvement and opportunity to take fans behind the scenes at the Clipsal 500, when his role with TEN kicked off.

Now, fresh off podium finishes at the last two rounds, Kelly will be back in the hot seat for next week's Castrol EDGE Townsville 400, as the V8 Supercars return to Network 10 with Saturday and Sunday's races 16 and 17 broadcast live.

"I really loved doing that," Kelly said of his involvement on the coverage at the season opening Clipsal 500.

"I was a little nervous getting into it because Clipsal is a massive event for us and I wasn't sure exactly how it would work throughout the weekend with Channel TEN.

"But the whole TEN team has just been amazing to work with from my point of view - very well organised, so the work that I did with them through Clipsal was very easy and very enjoyable, so it was really good."

Kelly - who is the highest placed of the four Nissan Altimas in the Championship, currently sitting 10th - is a team owner as well as a Championship and Bathurst 1000 winning driver. His new TV role is just another string in his bow.

"I've been racing Supercars for a long time now, so to have something like that present itself was a really exciting new challenge for me. It makes me come to the track a lot more excited to have something else to sink my teeth into and try and do a good job of," Kelly said.

"For me the weekends are normally very busy in the truck trying to work out how to go fast and so for me to, like I say, to have something else as well to try and do a good job of and plan out [is good]."

The best thing for Kelly is getting the opportunity to show fans what really happens behind the scenes and inside the transporters, that become the working area for teams post-race.

"[Fans] always see the very polished side of the sport, the track stuff - but for us to show what happens behind the scenes is quite exciting. And I think a lot of the feedback that I had [from the Clipsal coverage] was that people enjoy that side of things - to see what happens in the race transporters, to understand a bit more about the systems of the cars and what we get up to in between the session was pretty good."

Kelly is hoping to carry the momentum he has picked up through to Townsville, a track he has yet to conquer.

"I think in the past in Townsville we haven't had too bad a run from time to time, but this year the challenge will be managing both compounds of tyre in both of the 200km races," he said.

Strategy will again play an important part over the weekend - that and qualifying are two key things Kelly and his engineer George Commins will be focused on.

"Nailing the strategy ... is important, because if you get stuck behind someone for one or two stints in the race, it can put you back five or ten spots pretty easily.

"We're going to put a big focus on that, and we just want to continue carrying that great momentum we've had from the last couple of rounds."

Click here for all the TV broacast details for theCastrol EDGE Townsville 400.

The Castrol EDGE Townsville 400 will be shown on Saturday and Sunday on Channel TEN, with coverage beginning at 12pm and races LIVEfrom 4.15pm EST each day.

FOX SPORTS 506 will show the weekend in full kicking off on Friday and including all three practice sessions from 7am, as well as the weekend's qualifying and racing LIVE, starting at 7.30am on Saturday and 7.55am on Sunday.