Jack Daniel's Racing has been preparing for the worst in the lead up to the L&H 500.
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By Allan Edwards 10:45 AM Sun 12 September, 2010
Source: BigPond Sport
Jack Daniel’s Racing has been preparing for the worst for today’s (Sunday) L&H 500 at Phillip Island.
Kelly Racing has entered four cars in the race and driver and team co-owner Rick Kelly said all eight drivers have been involved in ‘disaster’ planning.
Rick indicated that the team has spent more time on planning how it will react when things go wrong than it has on car setup.
“Hopefully this year we have got a shot at the race because previous races here we’ve had a car that is capable of winning, but haven't got the opportunity due to an error or slip up here or there,” Rick said.
When asked if that involved practicing driver changes Rick said: “That's all we've been doing!”
“The eight drivers we've got have been at the workshop on a daily basis with a stopwatch doing driver changes and changing techniques and looking what each pairing is doing.
“I think we are well practiced in that area. We haven't done a lot on setup but we've done a lot on driver changes and problem management, like when a spoiler breaks, etc. It's all those little parts of a race like this that make the result a win or a loss.
“For us, last year I believe we had a car to win the race, but we had understeer when we were jammed behind people and things like the belts went wrong.
“We need to plan for that… things are going to go wrong. Even the car that wins does not have a dream run, it never is perfect. So we've spent a lot of time and effort planning around things and being ready for it and acting as you need to when that does happen.
“Hopefully we've ticked a lot of those boxes this year and we can have a car that's capable of winning and actually getting that result.”
His brother and fellow team co-owner, Todd, explained that even if a senario was unlikely the team has still come up with a plan of how to react to it just in case.
“You really can’t leave any stone unturned, even if the chances of it happening are one per cent, so we put huge effort into all of our driver change practice and even practicing getting the car into the garage half way through a race if we have to, or changing spoilers or God knows what. It makes you feel a lot better when you arrive at a race just knowing that all of that preparation has been done,” Todd told BigPond Sport.
Todd also believes that the experience of the team’s endurance drivers, especially Glenn Seton – who will share the Rock-sponsored Commodore with Jason Bargwanna – will help the team react quickly when things go wrong.
“Given the fact that we (Rick and Todd) can’t drive together I think that we have done well to secure a good bunch of drivers,” Todd said.
“You don’t get more experienced than Seto and even the younger guys that we have got who don’t have that level of experience are extremely level headed. You are never going to get a guy who is at the same level as the regular drivers, but our guys are not far off it.”
Owen Kelly – who will co-drive with Rick – says it’s all about not panicking when things don’t go to plan and the adrenaline is pumping.
“You just have to stay calm and I have done enough of this type of racing and have been in quite a few scenarios… and obviously Rick has been around for a long time as well, so we will be ready for whatever gets thrown at us and handle it the best we can and get on with it,” he said.
