Jack Daniel's Racing set for Symmons plains

The Jack Daniel's Racing duo of Rick and Todd Kelly are set to take on Symmons Plains Raceway, with the pair confident after a strong start to the season in their Nissan Altimas.

Following the opening round of the Championship on the streets of Adelaide, Rick is placed fourth in the title standings, while a minor technical problem sidelined Todd from the high points paying final race while in a promising position.

Todd Kelly, Jack Daniels Racing

Photo by: Circuit of the Americas

Both drivers have runs on the board in Tasmania, with Rick winning his first V8 Supercar race at the Symmons Plains venue in 2004, while Todd broke through for the first win for Jack Daniel's Racing in 2008.

The V8 Supercar field will hit Symmons Plains for the first time on Friday for a pair of 60 minute practice sessions, before a refined racing format on Saturday.

Following a pair of 15 minute qualifying sessions, the afternoon will feature two 100km long standalone races, with a further 200km race scheduled for Sunday.

RICK KELLY - #15 Jack Daniel's Nissan Altima: "Symmons Plains for us is an exciting round, I love Tassy," said Rick Kelly.

"I've earlier had a chance to shoot across there and have a go on the tree-top zip lines and have a look around, and it's a very exciting place for me from an adventure point of view.

"I did the Mark Webber Challenge down there, and I quite enjoyed it. Generally we only get the chance to go from the airport to the track and to the hotel, so it was good have a bit of a look around.

"From a racing point of view, it was one of the tougher rounds that we did last year with our straight line speed issue, so I'm quite excited to get back there this year to see what we can achieve, now that we've made significant gains in that area.

"We've come off the back of the Clipsal 500, which was a fantastic opening round for us, there was a couple of tough issues there, but we had really good pace, and at the Grand Prix again we were quick, and we made some good improvements throughout the weekend.

"We've definitely got much stronger momentum heading there this year, for me personally, I just want to build on the points base from Adelaide where we sit in fourth place.

"It's going to be tough, there's a lot of guys out there that are doing a great job and have good pace and had some bad luck at Clipsal as well.

"So we're quite focussed on just getting the most out of the car and doing a good job to try and defend that position, and hopefully move forward to the later rounds this year."

TODD KELLY - #7 Jack Daniel's Nissan Altima: "It's very encouraging the speed we've been having, especially qualifying fifth at the last round at Albert Park, but not being able to turn that into a race result," said Todd Kelly.

"It showed the raw car speed, but it still needs some fine tuning that we need to do.

"We went quite well at Symmons Plains last year, and we had quite a big aero deficiency and we were in the very early stages of our engine program, so we arrive there this year with a much better car and good knowledge on how to get a good setup and balance for that circuit.

"I can't wait to get there and see what we can do, especially after a DNF at the biggest points round so far at the Clipsal 500, I've got a bit of work to do, and hopefully I can make a start with that at Symmons Plains."

Jack Daniel's Racing