A FAMILIAR name could return to Supercars circles as soon as next year, albeit not at main game level.
Former Kelly Racing boss Todd Kelly has revealed he is assessing his options with regards to how to put his four-pronged fleet of Supercars to use in 2023.
The Kelly family owns the Ford Mustangs which are being driven this season by Grove Racing’s David Reynolds and Lee Holdsworth, plus the team’s spare, and a Nissan Altima.
“Anything that the Groves are using at the moment is all coming back at the end of the year, so I have got six engines and all of the spares and three Mustangs,” the 2005 Bathurst 1000 winner confirmed to V8 Sleuth.
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“I have also got all of the equipment and the race transporter, and I have also got my old Nissan as well which could potentially be a Super3 car.”
The demand for Gen2-specification Supercars has risen in recent times, given the likes of Triple Eight Race Engineering are staring down the barrel of exiting Super2 next year unless it can secure chassis.
The ongoing Repco Supercars Championship season is the first without Kelly involved as a driver or team owner since he made his Bathurst 1000 debut in 1998.
“We’re probably at the point where we need to start thinking about whether we look at selling them or leasing them out or running them ourselves,” he said of the Mustang trio.
“We could certainly gear up and run them, but being in Supercars for 20-odd years and having a year out of it and jumping straight back in needs a bit of thought.”
He’s definitely not ruling out the prospect, though.
“It would just have to be the right circumstances, like the right drivers and the right reasons. I’d love to,” said the 42-year-old.
There is a potential long-term play to forge an eventual pathway for his teenaged son Mason, who earlier this year was involved in the Marcos Ambrose-led Garry Rogers Motorsport Combine.
“It would be good to put Mason in a car on a track day just to see how he’d go,” said Todd.
“He has got very little experience, he has only done a little bit of go-karts and some Hyundai racing and then a few rounds in a MARC car so it’s a pretty big jump.
“In saying that it would be good to get the cars out on the track later in the year and have a play anyway and see how he goes and go from there.
“But certainly I need to do something with them. It would be a shame to have three or four cars sitting in the workshop ready to go but not being used, so one way or another they will probably end up on the track next year.”
Kelly won 19 Supercars Championship races during his career behind the wheel, while Kelly Racing picked up seven top-tier race wins across periods running Holden, Nissan and Ford equipment.
The team also dabbled in Super2 on occasion, including giving Cameron Waters his start.
