Kelly Racing Falken Tasmania Challenge race 2 report

Murphy Maintains 11Th In Points After Tough Tassie Weekend

Greg Murphy

Photo by: Chris Von Wieldt

Pepsi Max Crew driver Greg Murphy continues to hold 11th place in the 2011 V8 Supercars Championship points standings after finishing 14th at Symmons Plains Raceway near Launceston, Tasmania today.

It was a trying Falken Tasmania Challenge for Murphy, who failed to finish yesterday’s race when the right rear wheel came off the #11 Pepsi Max Commodore.

Stratco Racing driver David Reynolds had a weekend to forget aboard the #16 Stratco Commodore, registering 22nd place finishes in both races this weekend.

Todd Kelly was in fine form this weekend, with finishes of 11th and eighth in the two races held in Tasmania.

Rick Kelly maintains seventh in the 2011 V8 Supercars Championship points standings after finishing 12th in today’s race, following on from 14th place yesterday.

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

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

KELLY RACING QUOTEBOARD

GREG MURPHY - #11 Pepsi Max Holden Commodore:

“At least we got some points today,” said Greg Murphy.

“We were nowhere near where we wanted to be this weekend and we don’t know why exactly. It’s just little bits everywhere that meant we were struggling.

“The Pepsi Max Commodore wasn’t fast enough all weekend. It’s a bit of a surprise, we thought we’d be better than that.

“We just didn’t have the pace. There were a few critical areas where we were lacking. You do a lot of laps in the races around here and it adds up.

“It’s a bit of a shock really and we didn’t come away from here with any where near as many points as we wanted to.

“We are still 11th in the points, a couple of people helped us there. We are still battling to finish the year in that top 10 so that’s a plus.

“We’ve only got a few days to work hard to ensure we don’t have the same issues at Sandown. The boys will be looking into everything they can to give us that bit more pace.

“I struggled with brakes in both races. It’s a bit of a shock as I tried to look after them. We have to improve that for Sandown.

“Power is also an issue. I think there might be a little gremlin in the electronics somewhere that hurt us at times on the straights. So that’s another one that we’ll work on for Sandown.”

DAVID REYNOLDS - #16 Stratco Holden Commodore:

“It’s hard to take any positives out of this weekend,” said David Reynolds.

“There were times there in practice and qualifying where we showed flashes of speed, but we just didn’t have it in either of the races.

“I had a new engineer (Peter Craik) this weekend. He’s come across from the JD garage so we know each other well.

“But when it comes to working together it takes a while and we spent this weekend figuring it all out.

“It takes a while to understand each other. What I want in the car, even the words we both use. It’s about bringing together our different methods and theories.

“We never gave up and we’ll be working hard this week to make sure we put in a much better showing at Sandown.”

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.”