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Key Nissan parts arrive for Kelly Racing
Kelly Racing has received the parts required to complete the build of the Nissan Altimas it will campaign from the 2013 V8 Supercars season.
These include doors, bonnets, boot lids, guards, front and rear lights, grills, badges and mirrors of the Altima – parts which the team will put towards the build of six Car of the Future chassis' and its spare parts inventory.
"The arrival of a vast array of Altima components is exciting for everyone involved in the Nissan Motorsport project," said Nissan Australia CEO Bill Peffer.
"Progress towards next year is strong and the race team should be commended for tackling such an enormous task with an incredibly professional and precise approach."
Todd Kelly said close cooperation was needed with Nissan given the Altima chassis had yet to be unveiled when Kelly Racing started work on its Car of the Future build.
"I'm extremely impressed with how efficient the freight process has been, right from the start, given that it comes from the other side of the world," he said.
"Most importantly, the Altima had not even been released when we received our deliveries. A lot of it was only just getting signed off for production.
"So to tap into that and for Nissan to get us what we need to complete the design and build of these cars was extremely impressive and efficient."
V8 Supercars recently cancelled plans to host a Car of the Future group test at Queensland Raceway in August, instead implementing test periods teams can use at their discretion, amid concerns some are well behind with their Car of the Future builds for 2013.
But Todd Kelly says his team is on track, despite the extra workload of working with a new manufacturer.
"At the moment we are pretty much on track to what we would have hoped to achieve, which is good because normally when you have a design program of this magnitude and it normally runs over by quite a bit once you actually get into it," he said.
"But we've actually managed to keep it pretty close to being on track with our projections and planning.
"We went in right from the start as hard as we possibly could and we have been very strict with timelines.
"We now have two completely separate engine divisions. We have our current Holden V8 Supercar engine crew and then we have our Nissan engine department, which has got three people full-time working on getting the Nissan engines ready. They don't have anything to do with our current cars, they are concentrating purely on the Nissan project.
"That, along with the help and support through Nissan and the help and support of NISMO, has really bolstered the engine program to be on track. It's been very impressive how our engineering team have attacked that and got through the workload.
"It's the same thing with the bodywork and the design of the car to get a road car onto the chassis and then design an aero kit, front bar, side skirts, the whole thing is a huge task and those engineers have also done an amazing job."
The first Nissan Altima V8 Supercar will be unveiled at the end of 2012 ahead of the Australian launch of the road-car in the second half of 2013, while Kelly Racing will also confirm the details of Nissan's engine package in the coming months.
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