Reconstructed Nissan star aims for the front

V8 Supercar star Todd Kelly has vowed his return to the cockpit at the wheel of a new factory Nissan Altima at this weekend’s Clipsal 500 will be the start of a new era of competitive racing for him.

Kelly is one of four factory Nissan drivers who will race in Adelaide, with brother Rick and new signings James Moffat and Michael Caruso joining him in the squad’s new Altima V8s.

Most immediately, Todd Kelly faces the prospect of testing his fitness in his first race back from a shoulder reconstruction that forced him to miss the last few races of 2012 and most of summer testing.

But Kelly’s issues go deeper; as technical director of Kelly Racing - which morphed into Nissan Motorsport over the summer, during its four-year existence as a privateer Holden squad - he has battled to find the time to focus enough on his driving role, at times sacrificing his racing performances to testing and developing at V8 Supercar championship rounds while younger brother Rick has raced for results.

But now regaining full fitness and with a strong technical squad in the garage to manage issues he has previously had to focus on, the 2005 Bathurst winner says it’s time the racing became his priority once more.

As a 19-time V8 Supercar race winner, the older Kelly brother is no stranger to the top step of the podium, but his last win came in 2008 in his sole season racing for Perkins Engineering, after five successful years at the Holden Racing Team.

“I’m aiming for a steady start, but through the middle of the year to the end we want to be up the front and that is 100 per cent our goal,” said Kelly.

“This year is the first time we have really had extremely high calibre people in all the departments to take a huge amount of load off me,” he explained.

“The lead-up to Adelaide this year is probably the best I’ve had, even if we are in the middle of this build. I can jump in the gym for an hour or get on the mountain bike for a couple of hours and I can get into work at 8.00 or 9.00am and not be stressed about what’s going on.”

Kelly, 33, said he was not expecting to be a front-runner at this weekend’s gruelling championship opener, which is conducted over two 250km heats on the Adelaide parklands street circuit.

“I have been in the game now for quite some time and I know what the impact a change like this can have and if I go out there thinking ‘hey I am going to win Clipsal’ and I tell everyone ‘I am going to win Clipsal’ then you are really kidding yourself and you are probably not going to come out of that race meeting in the right frame of mind.

“The start of this year is probably going to be the biggest challenge for me in a long time. It’s the hardest race we ever do, with all-new equipment and just coming off a shoulder reconstruction. My goal for Adelaide is simply finish two races and come out of there with points.

“And it will be tough. It is a very physical circuit. Fitness wise apart from the shoulder I am OK, but we don’t really do enough testing to know how I will get through Adelaide until we go there.”

Kelly said any doubts he had about his love of driving were erased by his enforced lay-off to recover from the surgery.

“It needed to happen for me to work out what I should be doing,” he admits of his enforced break. “It has really reaffirmed that if I got out of the car and just managed (the team) I would not be a happy camper.”

For much more on the arrival of Nissan in V8 Supercar racing and the development of its squad of V8 Altimas, look out for a special edition of the Motoring iPad app later this week. To be published on Thursday, February 28, ‘The Road to Clipsal’ will deliver an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Kelly Racing’s journey from one prototype engine to facing the starter at this weekend’s season-opening Clipsal 500.

Read the latest news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site…