Kelly reaches the milestone replacing Garth Tander as youngest driver by two and a half years
with an impressive eight round wins and 25 podium results on the journey.
“It’s quality, not quantity, as far as I’m concerned,” Kelly said.
“My goal is not necessarily to reach 200 or anything like that, but to score a few more Bathurst
wins and maybe a championship or two along the way.”
Kelly, as a 17-year-old Formula Ford driver from Mildura, was first spotted by then-Holden Racing
Team boss Jeff Grech in 1997 and invited to join Jason Bargwanna, Stephen White and Mark
Noske in the inaugural Holden Young Lions squad.
Grech remembers ringing Todd’s father John to arrange the deal only to have the phone slammed
in his ear.
“John thought I was one of his mates having him on and I had to ring back and persuade him I was
fair dinkum,” Grech laughed.
“Todd turned out to be the pick of the bunch and has proved to be an outstanding talent.”
Kelly remembers his first race at the 1998 Grand Prix V8 supports when the nervous teenager was
punted into the fence by veteran Tony Longhurst on the first lap.
“My first V8 race lasted one corner and cost the team $40,000 in damages. I won’t forget that in a
hurry!”
Kelly’s first championship race was the following season at Eastern Creek where a deflated tyre
put him into a wall at 197km/h.
“It was a large hit and totally destroyed the car,” Kelly said. “I won’t forget that either.”
Results improved for the young Kelly and he moved from the Holden Young Lion’s to Kmart Racing
in 2001.
“A highlight for me was my first race win at Canberra in 2000 on a very demanding circuit holding
off a very determined Craig Lowndes. I guess it proved I could race with the best of them.”
“My ambition as a young bloke was always to race for Holden Racing Team as I enjoyed the way
they used to hose the opposition. That happened in 2003 and has delivered a couple of great
memories – like winning Bathurst in 2005 with Mark Skaife on my 26th birthday.
In fact, he said ‘Happy Birthday Toddler’ over the radio on his last lap. Winning in China was an awesome
experience at an unbelievable circuit in a country where the V8’s will probably not visit again, so it’s
one for the record book.”
Skaife said that Kelly had been a great team-mate at HRT over the last five seasons.
“He’s a very bright young guy who has done a great job to get where he is today – one of the top
liners in the sport. It’s a real pleasure to have him around at HRT,” Skaife said.
Kelly has never been swept up in the V8 hype and respects the difficulties often encountered in
such a competitive category.
“This year HRT probably had its worst round ever at Winton and I personally felt I’d done a bad job
in a really good car. Three weeks later we’ve scored a one/two finish at Eastern Creek in our best
dual result for five years - that’s Supercar racing!”
“As a driver, I’m not really into the business of getting my head onto TV every five minutes. What
gets me going is the engineering, equipment and racing side of things – that’s what it’s really all
about,” he said.
On brother Rick, Todd said he was quite happy operating in a different race team, although they
were both close mates.
“It’s worked out well so far; if Rick and I teamed together with Dad as team owner it could put
extreme pressure on the family relationship and with us Kellys the family always comes first.”
