Rick Kelly takes pole as Holden Special Vehicle Dealer Team takes first blood
7/4/2005 18:56 (Press Release) -
Holden Special Vehicles Dealer Team’s Rick Kelly blasted out of the starting blocks by taking the first pole position of the season at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide today.
After qualifying sixth and starting second in the randomly-drawn sudden-death Top 10 Shootout, the 22-year-old from Mildura put down a best time of 1 min 22.94 seconds to eclipse the first runner Craig Lowndes, and then sat back in the pit garage to watch the remainder of the drivers trying to catch him.
He will line up next to Marcus Ambrose on the front row of the grid for the first of two 250km races at the challenging 3.2km Adelaide street circuit tomorrow afternoon. The second race will be held on Sunday.
Kelly was elated that the new-look team with new VZ Commodores had been able to run with the best at the first serious hit out of the season.
“I didn’t think the time I recorded in the Shoot Out would be fast enough, to be honest,” “But it is fantastic. The team has been working overtime since Christmas. We have new cars, new colours and new a new team structure, and to be up the front, straight out of the box is fantastic.”
It is Kelly’s second career pole position, the first being at Sandown with Greg Murphy last year.
Kelly will be hoping his Bathurst-winning team’s exceptional record in endurance racing will stand him and teammate Garth Tander in good stead over the 500 km distance this weekend.
Tander will start from 18th position on the grid after struggling with his car’s race set up during practice and qualifying. However, he says progress was made in each of yesterday’s three sessions, and the HSV DT Commodore felt good during a practice lap under full tanks. “It is going to be difficult from 18th, but the car feels good.”
#15 Rick Kelly (qualified 1st – 1:22.94):
“Being up the front is fantastic, especially for the team which has worked so hard over the Christmas break on the new cars. But it is along way to go, so we will be just trying to get away cleanly for the first few laps and stay out of trouble and take it from there.”
#16 Garth Tander (qualified 18th – 1:23.21):
“It was a frustrating day. We can’t figure out why we are not on the money. We made progress and the car has been getting better and better, but when you start behind the eight ball, it is hard to catch up. But I think it will be a fine race car. We ran with full tanks at the end of the second session and our pace was really pretty good. That bodes well for the race.”
Release Date: 18/03/2005
HSV Dealer Team
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