"We are going to aim to win that championship, aim right for the top and give it absolutely everything because there is no point in aiming at third.
"That's not to say we are going to definitely win the championship for Jack Daniel's Racing this year but I can tell you that we are going to give it a damn good go.
"We're not aiming at winning every single event, but certainly aiming at having the speed and consistency we need throughout the year to win that championship."
Brother and team-mate Todd Kelly, driver of the #7 Jack Daniel's Racing Holden Commodore, agrees that the team, not yet 12 months old, has what it takes to step up to be genuine contenders.
"Last year it was a case of 'let's get to the end of the year and try and get the cars on the podium and see if we can win races towards the end'," said Todd Kelly.
"That was a pretty unrealistic goal when you look at who we are competing with. Some people have got 10 years worth of data and experience and we're pretty fresh and almost brand new.
"I think we achieved our goals last year so this year we really can't set our goals on anything less than going to a race meeting and trying to put the cars on the front row, getting podiums and winning races.
"If we come away from a race weekend and haven't got close to a podium, we'll be disappointed."
Todd Kelly will debut a brand new #7 Jack Daniel's Racing Holden Commodore at the first official test day of the season at Winton Motor Raceway on February 8.
The chassis has been designated KR001, as it is the first V8 Supercar built completely in-house at Kelly Racing's state-of-the-art Braeside facility.
The car is the result of hundreds of hours of computer-aided design work by Kelly Racing's engineering team and support staff from KarelCAD, all using cutting edge Autodesk software.
Jack Daniel's Racing driver Todd Kelly said that it had taken a lot of work to get to this point, but now the time has come for the team to raise its game to the next level.
"We've worked pretty hard to have everything come into place," said Todd Kelly.
"There is really no excuse now. We've got all the good guys working for us, we've got fantastic sponsors and we need to go out and perform now.
"Rick and I are extremely focused on making sure that we can achieve what we need to achieve this year and lift the bar by a long way on what we achieved last year."
Rick Kelly has decided to remain in his 2009 #15 Jack Daniel's Racing Holden Commodore (chassis number PE048) for the start of this season, believing that the strong pace he showed towards the end last season will carry into the 2010 championship.
"I really wanted to stick with the same car for the first two races at least," said Rick Kelly.
"The continuity you get when you head from the end of one year into the start of the next with the same chassis, in my opinion, is extremely important.
"We're heading to a track that we've never been to before in Abu Dhabi so having a car that we know quite well is very important."
