JEDDAH, 26 November 2006 — Craig Lowndes moved to just seven points behind the leader in the V8 Supercar Championship Series after a difficult weekend for Toll HSV Racing’s Rick Kelly at the Desert 400 in Bahrain.
Kelly lost ground in Bahrain after increasing the margin with a strong performance in Tasmania. Team Betta Electrical’s Lowndes fought back to finish fourth. The weekend was also tough for Kelly’s Toll HSV teammate Garth Tander.
Ford Performance Racing’s Jason Bright won the first Desert 400 from Todd Kelly and Tander — at the same time clinching the manufacturers’ title for Ford 7-5 over Holden with one round remaining at Phillip Island.
“It was a great battle all weekend. We traded wins but when Garth missed the start it was going to be on. I knew that he wasn’t going to get away with it so then it became a good battle with Todd (Kelly),” Bright said.
It makes for an incredible last round at the Caterpiller Grand Final at Phillip Island in two weeks time when any error from either team will win or lose the championship. The stakes could not be any higher.
“It’s not as good as the 90-point lead we had at the start of the day but it’s going to be a fair dinkum battle at Phillip Island which is great for the spectators and the sport but tough for us,” Kelly said.
Kelly, at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, couldn’t get past Lowndes in a dogfight to the end. “He (Lowndes) is going to be very difficult to beat,” said Kelly. “He was very fast there last year and I finished on the podium. Hopefully we will have a good car and sail away into the sunset but I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.”
Kelly suffered from a shredded tire in race two after an incident with Jeld Wen Racing’s James Courtney to ultimately finish 28th -- his starting position for the final race. In contrast, Lowndes finished fifth to cut the gap back to just 14 points.
An equally tough drive from Kelly in the final race to go from 28th to fifth meant he retained his championship lead, but only by a slender seven points. The team elected to stay out until lap 28 and the strategy appeared to work.
“We debated over it, had an arm wrestle and that’s what won it for us. It was a smart decision for us. We thought about the safety cars here and the lack of them so it paid off,” Kelly said.
Lowndes was excited by the prospect of going into the final round with the entire season on the line.
Tander was given a pit-lane penalty for a false start in race three when he and Bright were locked level on points going into the final race. It was the third time this year the Toll HSV team had been penalized for a false start. “It was a very silly error at the start of that race to jump on the red. I was well out of the box and just waiting for the penalty. The upside is we fought back and got back on the podium,” Tander said.
