JDR Falken Tasmania Challenge race 2 report

Todd Kelly On Form With Eighth In TasmaniaTodd Kelly On Form With Eighth In Tasmania

#7 Jack Daniel's Racing: Todd Kelly

Photo by: Chris Von Wieldt

Jack Daniel’s Racing driver Todd Kelly has capped a solid weekend at the Falken Tasmania Challenge with eighth place at Symmons Plains Raceway near Launceston, Tasmania today.

Kelly was in fine form this morning in qualifying, on track for a lap that would likely have put him on the front row of the grid until held up by another car.

Starting from ninth place, Kelly drove a smart race aboard the #7 Jack Daniel’s Commodore to grab a top 10 finish to back up his 11th place on Saturday.

Rick Kelly maintains seventh in the 2011 V8 Supercars Championship points standings after finishing 12th in today’s race.

After qualifying in sixth earlier today aboard the #15 Jack Daniel’s Commodore, Rick Kelly had poor rear tyre life affect his race. Pitting early for new rears, he then had to save fuel in the final stages to reach the finish.

Prior to saving fuel Todd and Rick had been fighting it out for eighth place, only for Rick to fall to 12th position over the final 10 laps.

Championship leader Jamie Whincup won today’s race ahead of Will Davison and Mark Winterbottom.

Jack Daniel’s Racing will be back in action at the Norton 360 Sandown Challenge at Sandown International Raceway in Melbourne, Victoria next weekend.

JACK DANIEL’S RACING QUOTEBOARD

TODD KELLY - #7 Jack Daniel’s Holden Commodore:

“The Jack Daniel’s Commodore was great in qualifying today,” said Todd Kelly.

“I got held up on our best lap, which cost me a lot of spots, so the car was a lot better than the result showed in qualifying.

“In the race it was probably really only as good as where I ended up. If I could make one change to the car it would have made a big difference to the race pace but unfortunately we were a third of the way into the race before I worked out exactly what we needed to do. We made a little bit of a change in the pit stop to try our best.

“Over all it was a good result. We are really starting to work out our little (set-up) window of where we need the car. It's taken me a long time for everything like that to start to click and it finally is so I can’t wait to get to Sandown.

“I’m really looking forward to getting there and getting a good result. There are only two rounds left for the year so we want to make them both good ones.

“There have been a lot of weekends this year where I've said 'that's as good as I could have gone'.

“This weekend is one of the best we’ve had this year and it's one of the few weekends that I've been saying we've been capable of being a lot further up.

“There were times where things were equal in practice and even in early parts of qualifying where I was always in the top four, but then for one reason or another in those last bits that count and in the race I was back in the last few cars in the top 10.

“It’s certainly better than where I've been running so it's a good result for the boys and nice that everyone has a smile on their face today in the Jack Daniel’s Racing garage.”

RICK KELLY - #15 Jack Daniel’s Holden Commodore:

“It was a race that revolved around strategy to a large extent,” said Rick Kelly.

“Our rear tyres just didn't quite hold in as well as some others so we had to pit early at our second stop. That caused us to run very, very lean on the fuel to get to the finish.

“Of course when you do that you lose a lot of straight line speed so we dropped off a fair bit and let Todd go and tried to consolidate there and lost a couple of spots right at the end.

“It’s not where you want to finish when you start sixth but considering how lean the car was we did alright to finish 12th in our Jack Daniel’s Commodore.

“It was really good to see Todd up there all weekend. He did an awesome job in both races and both qualifying sessions.

“That's two weekends in a row I've been dicing with other cars from within our team. It's good to see and a very good problem to have. I want to be having that same problem a little further up the order.”