» V8s: Kelly claims lights-to-flag win in the rain

Rick Kelly has claimed victory in teeming conditions in the first of this weekend’s V8 Supercars race at Sandown Raceway, mirroring his win earlier this year in the wet at Hamilton. The Jack Daniel’s Holden driver won by 3.7 seconds ahead of outgoing champion James Courtney, while team-mate Todd Kelly finished third.

Further down the order, a circumspect championship leader Jamie Whincup drove cautiously in the soaking conditions, falling down the field to 13th, after starting on the front row.

But his team-mate and sole championship rival Craig Lowndes threw caution to the wind after his disastrous performance in qualifying. Starting from the last row of the grid, the Team Vodafone Holden driver cut through the field, finishing a hugely impressive sixth to narrow the championship gap to Whincup to 158 points.

At the front of the field, Kelly remained in control of the race throughout, and managed the race’s three safety car interruptions with great effect.

Kelly’s mid-race lead over Courtney was wiped out with the second full-course caution, which was triggered by Greg Murphy binning his Holden on Lap 21.

Just a few laps of green-flag conditions later, and another safety car interruption. This time it was Jason Bargwanna who had crashed, although the Brad Jones Holden driver blamed James Moffat (Dick Johnson Ford) for tipping him into the wall at high speed.

Up at the front, Kelly managed his race restarts to perfection and kept Courtney at bay to claim his first win since the Darwin round.

Courtney finally found some form in what has been an awful year as defending champion, overtaking Will Davison (Ford Performance Racing) and Shane van Gisbergen (Stone Brothers Ford) to finish second, while the elder Kelly brother claimed third place on the final lap.

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V8 Supercars Norton 360 Sandown Challenge Final Classification (Race 1 – 37 laps):

	Driver	Entry / Team	Result
1.	Rick Kelly	Jack Daniel’s / Kelly Racing	58:57.5869
2.	James Courtney	TOLL / Holden Racing Team	+ 3.7225
3.	Todd Kelly	Jack Daniel’s / Kelly Racing	+ 4.4068
4.	Will Davison	Trading Post / Ford Performance Racing	+ 4.8955
5.	Shane van Gisbergen	SP Tools / Stone Brothers Racing	+ 5.8200
6.	Craig Lowndes	Team Vodafone / Triple 8 Race Engineering	+ 6.3721
7.	Mark Winterbottom	Orrcon Steel / Ford Performance Racing	+ 7.4869
8.	Garth Tander	TOLL / Holden Racing Team	+ 9.8719
9.	Fabian Coulthard	Bundaberg / Walkinshaw Racing	+ 9.9133
10.	Steve Owen	VIP Petfoods / Paul Morris Motorsport	+ 13.0046
11.	Jonathon Webb	Mother Energy Racing Team / Tekno	+ 14.9376
12.	Paul Dumbrell	The Bottle-O Racing Team / Rod Nash	+ 15.0599
13.	Jamie Whincup	Team Vodafone / Triple 8 Race Engineering	+ 15.6764
14.	Russell Ingall	Supercheap Auto / Paul Morris Motorsport	+ 15.8810
15.	Tim Slade	Lucky 7 / Stone Brothers Racing	+ 17.7658
16.	Alex Davison	Irwin / Stone Brothers Racing	+ 20.0634
17.	Lee Holdsworth	Fujitsu Racing / Garry Rogers Motorsport	+ 21.1659
18.	David Reynolds	Stratco Racing / Kelly Racing	+ 23.5031
19.	Andrew Jones	Team BOC / Brad Jones Racing	+ 23.5471
20.	Karl Reindler	Fair Dinkum Sheds / Brad Jones Racing	+ 25.6118
21.	Michael Caruso	Fujitsu Racing / Garry Rogers Motorsport	+ 27.8088
22.	Warren Luff	Gulf Western Oil Racing / Lucas Dumbrell	+ 32.6220
23.	Steven Johnson	Jim Beam / Dick Johnson Racing	1 lap behind

	NOT CLASSIFIED
DNF.	James Moffat	Jim Beam / Dick Johnson Racing	33 laps
DNF.	Dean Fiore	Westrac Racing / Triple F Racing	33 laps
DNF.	Jason Bargwanna	Jana Living / Brad Jones Racing	28 laps
DNF.	Greg Murphy	Pepsi Max Crew / Kelly Racing	20 laps
DNF.	Tony D’Alberto	Wilson Security / Tony D’Alberto Racing	11 laps