Rick Kelly

In my last year, I started that year and I had zero money, like absolutely no money whatsoever.

So I figured out ways to do deals between businesses like B2B and that I got a friend who I raced for Bob Jane T-Marts in Carrera Cup and a friend of mine had a freighting company and I got them to do all their freight for their tyres, which got me Half the way there I was the middleman did the deal and I was just a shonky salesman the other day and the b2b got me halfway there and that sort of got me in DVS in like a few rounds in then I sort of Beg borrowed and steal it off people sold sponsorship and I eventually got to the end Yeah, that was like one of the hardest years of my life I was 22 years old at the time trying to find you know half a million dollars and I had zero so I Beg borrowed and steal it off everyone and and just made it and luckily I I got very, very lucky that the next year in 2009, sorry, at the end of 2008, start of 2009, Rick Kelly left HSV dealer team, which opened up a seat for myself.

And they found Bundy Red Racing or Bundaberg Red as a sponsor.

And they nominated myself as the young driver and that got my start in supercars.

It can be.

You know Rick Kelly, your supercar driver, remember him? Yeah.

He set it up there.

It's a bloody good spot.

No, pass.

Rick Kelly.

Who? Rick Kelly is the answer.

Oh, Rick Kelly.

Rick Kelly.

His co-driver on that day, Greg Murphy.

Wow.

This was the absolute height of the Holden v. Ford rivalry.

You had Rick Kelly for the HSV dealer team up against Craig Lowndes for Triple Eight, Holden, Ford.

They were the two title combatants at Phillip Island, a three-race weekend to decide the 2006 title.

Rick Kelly had a lot of help, though.

Of course, the HSV dealer team was part of the four-pronged Walkinshaw Empire back in the day with the two HSV dealer team cars, Rick Kelly, Garth Tander, and the factory HRT cars of Mark Scaife and Todd Kelly.

And there were a lot of games being played by Rick Kelly's three stablemates against Craig Lowndes to try and prevent him from winning the title.

Ultimately, it was a bit of a, I guess, an iconic final race moment where Rick Kelly bumped into his brother Todd, who then spun out Craig Lowndes at the Turn 4 hairpin.

I think Honda Corner it was back in the day.

There was cloud cover and everything else.

The last 15 laps, or what it was, eight, 15 laps, I had a great battle with Rick Kelly.

We crossed the line.

and the gap between Rick and I was .05, which was Brock's number.