Kelly Racing unveil retro Castrol livery for Bathurst

Kelly Racing has taken the covers off the Nissan Altima which will be shared by Rick Kelly and Dale Wood in this weekend’s Bathurst 1000, throwing back to a classic livery of title sponsor Castrol.

Unveiled alongside the original car, the predominantly silver livery harks back to the “Silver Bullet” Holden Commodore VT which Russell Ingall campaigned in the 2000 Supercars season for Perkins Engineering.

The decision to run the retro livery was put into the hands of punters who picked their favourite classic Castrol paint schemes from a choice of eight, Ingall’s 2000 livery coming up trumps.

A two-time Bathurst 1000 winner, both times with Greg Murphy in 2003 and 2004, Kelly said running a retro livery on one of his team’s cars for the seventh season in a row adds to the fun of the Bathurst experience.

“For me this weekend is all about having fun and enjoying what is the biggest weekend in our sport and to kick it off by revealing this livery at the top of Mount Panorama with all of the fans here is really cool,” said Kelly.

“Over the years I’ve had a fair bit of success here at the Mountain and Castrol was supporting me back then so to have their continued support now and be able to do cool initiatives like this and involve the fans is great for our partnership.”

“Myself and Dale are now really looking forward to hitting the track on Thursday. This event is always a big challenge both physically and mentally for the drivers but at the same time it’s such a special place to drive around so any time you can do laps here is a good experience.”

Ingall was there to join Kelly in the reveal, the pair teaming up for Ingall’s last Bathurst assault in 2016 after winning with Larry Perkins in 1995 and 1997.

“The Silver Bullet in its day was definitely a crowd favourite and glad to see it still is now,” said Ingall.

“My time at Castrol Perkins Racing was a pretty special part of my career so to see those colours here today and racing around the Mountain is going to bring back some great memories.

“Have to thank the fans for picking this Castrol livery and hopefully will see it cross the line on the podium.”

It will be the first time the Silver Bullet scheme has been run at Bathurst as Ingall reverted to the standard Perkins black, white, green and red colours for the 2000 Great Race.