Signed Up: Tony Dowe has joined Kelly Racing and relocated from the United States.
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6:00 AM Thu 2 February, 2012
Source: BigPond Sport
KELLY Racing has appointed internationally experienced motorsport engineer Tony Dowe to the position of Performance Director.
Dowe will oversee the technical and racing aspects of the operation, which enters its fourth year of competition in 2012.
Having completed a four-month engineering consultancy role with Kelly Racing in the final stages of the 2011 V8 Supercars Championship, Dowe has now relocated from the United States to Australia to work from the team’s Braeside headquarters in Melbourne.
Dowe is the former Managing Director of TWR’s United States arm, which operated the successful Jaguar sportscar program in the late 1980s and early 1990s, winning both the Daytona and Le Mans 24 Hour events.
He also has experience in Formula 1 with Ensign, Brabham, Wolf, Ligier and Arrows, IndyCar with Chaparral and Newman-Haas, Sportscar racing with Haas, TWR Inc (Jaguar), Panoz, Dick Barbour Racing and Tafel Racing, MotoGP with Kenny Roberts Racing and has served as a representative on the FIA’s sportscar technical working group.
“I recognised massive potential in Kelly Racing as a result of my consultancy role with the team in the last part of 2011,” said Dowe.
“This team is in a growth phase and it was an easy decision when Todd asked me to take on this full-time role because Kelly Racing is such an exciting young team.
“I’m really enjoying working alongside Todd in shaping the direction of the company and putting together a world-class engineering group.
“There is a lot of work still ahead of us but I’m genuinely excited about the direction of the team heading into this season.”
Todd Kelly, team co-owner and driver of the team’s #7 Jack Daniel’s Racing Commodore, says that the team is focusing on beefing up its engineering staff this year in order to take the next step.
“Tony is extremely valuable to the team, especially given his contacts globally, which we have used to attract additional key people into Kelly Racing,” he said.
“The big focus for us this year is to really take the team to the next level and we can't do that without hiring more staff and higher level staff to fill key positions.
“Tony has been fantastic in that respect and secured some outstanding people to the team that we will announce shortly.
“As far as the team goes, especially in an engineering sense, this year our capabilities will be much higher than they’ve ever been since we've been in operation.”
For more on Kelly Racing: www.kellyracing.com.au
