Rick Kelly takes first win for Kelly Racing at Hamilton

Rick Kelly took the first victory for his family run Kelly Racing team at Hamilton in New Zealand, with Triple Eight’s Craig Lowndes second and brother Todd completing the podium.

It was Rick’s first win in three years, ending a dry spell for the 2006 V8 Supercar champion.

The result was even more special, as the team had to take their spare car after Rick Kelly’s car was too severely damaged at the Non-Championship event in Australia three weeks ago.

Kelly had qualified third in the Holden Commodore VE II, and worked his way through the field in the wet street race to take the win by 1.3 seconds from Lowndes.

Points leader Jamie Whincup had a terrible race, hitting the wall after switching to slick tyres and losing three laps for repair, finishing 23rd overall.

The race was interrupted by two deployments of the safety car. The first was for Tim Slade’s Stone Brothers Racing Falcon crashing out on lap 29, and debris causing the other.

“In the dry and in the wet the Jack Daniel’s Commodore was fantastic,” said Rick Kelly.

“I am really stoked for the guys. They have worked so hard in the lead-up to this. The car was really quick. The last thing you want to hear on the radio with five or six laps to go with a five second lead is a Safety Car. If it wasn’t for that we would have been first and second.”

Mark Winterbottom’s fourth place finish in the Ford Performance Racing Falcon closes him to 60 points off of Whincup, with Craig Lowndes 69 points further back.