Race Flashback: Rick Kelly's First Race

Many may not remember the debut of the younger of the Kelly brothers – and for good reason.

While his first proper race was the V8 Supercar Bathurst 1000 in 2001, Rick Kelly’s official debut was at Queensland Raceway that year.

Back then the Ipswich circuit held the 500km preview race to Bathurst and Kelly was paired with Nathan Pretty in the #51 Holden Commodore VX for the K-Mart Racing Team. Pictured above is #15 of Todd Kelly and Greg Murphy – the sister car – which went on to finish third at the 500, and below, the full K-Mart Racing line up. 

“It’s recorded there (Queensland Raceway),” Kelly – who now drives a Jack Daniel’s Nissan Altima – said of his debut.

“But we never raced there – we broke a tailshaft on the start of the warm up lap. So I drove the car to the grid and faced a start – but it was the start of the warm-up lap.

“So my first real race was Bathurst.”

The Kelly/Pretty entry was the first of 14 DNFs (did not finish) for the race at the Queensland 500, which Steven Johnson and Paul Radisich won in a Shell Helix Racing Ford Falcon AU (which we will talk more about next week).

Kelly said it was frustrating such a milestone in his career started sourly.

“It was a huge step in my career to go and race, but it stopped before it started!

“It was a tough one, but also the start of great things with the K-Mart Racing Team.”

While the result was terrible at the time, looking back Kelly felt it was a good experience, given what he achieved with the team and that he and Pretty – who are still good friends – had the chance to drive together.

And it meant Kelly’s first real V8 Supercars race was at the Bathurst 1000.

“That was really the first race I had outside of Formula Ford or Formula Holden,” he said.

“It was exciting and we ran quite well – an incident cost us a couple of laps in the pits, fixing a steering clevice, after we got bashed into.

“We were running well but that dropped us down.

“It was so exciting – I remember driving around in a V8 Supercar in what were my first racing laps. Being able to touch and see other cars was completely new – I’d never been able to make contact with other cars without ripping the wheels off.

“But that was forever ago.”

Kelly and Pretty finished 14th, managing to make it home, though dropping three laps. A whopping 18 cars didn’t finish the race, which was won by Mark Skaife and Tony Longhurst in a Holden Racing Team Commodore VX.

It was two years on Kelly won his first Bathurst, still with K-Mart Racing Team, alongside Greg Murphy. The following year they backed it up with another first place at The Mountain and in 2006 Kelly won the V8 Supercars Championship.

Now, Kelly has the opportunity to attack Mount Panorama with a new perspective – click here to read about his selection in the Nismo Athlete Global Team. 

Looking back, Kelly said it was difficult to compare himself to the current crop of young drivers coming through, mainly because he had never raced a V8 Supercar before coming into the series.

“Now they have a year, two or three, in the development (Dunlop) series – so they understand the cars, the racing and the rules. It was a different scenario back then.

“I was put in a car that was very good as well, so it took a little bit of time to find the limits, what was acceptable and overstepping the mark.

“It was a rollercoaster ride – to understand where I fit in the scheme and to gain the respect of the team and other drivers out there, takes a bit of finding.

“You need to learn from mistakes – at that age mistakes are an important part of developing yourself.”

Kelly described many of the new young drivers in the category as exceptional, and was particularly impressed with Scott McLaughlin having achieved his first win so early on. McLaughlin smashed Todd Kelly’s record of the youngest driver to achieve a Championship race win in the category (Todd reflected on his win with v8supercars.com.au earlier in the year).

“There’s a good range of youngsters – a couple might not make it and a couple will be big problems for the guys up the front in the not too distant future,” Rick said.

“Prior to this year, I think there was a shortage of new youngsters coming through who haven’t had the opportunity, but it’s a good thing for the sport to see that happening now.

“You don’t want the same guys forever and a day – you want them to have good long careers, but fresh faces and personalities coming through are a breath of fresh air and as they develop their personalities and fan bases, it’ll expand the sport further.”

This year the event at Queensland Raceway, the Coates Hire Ipswich 360 being held July 26-28, runs the 60/60 format with a 120km race with two 60km halves on Saturday and two 100km races on Sunday.

Tickets are available through Ticketek and for a live, uninterrupted streaming of the on-track action, sign up for V8 SuperView.