Video: Nissan Altima V8 Supercar hits the track

Kelly Racing has hit the track for the first time with the new Nissan Altima. Team owner and driver Todd Kelly was the first behind the wheel of the brand new car.
“That was the first point where I’ve thought ‘this is a pretty impressive project’ and … yeah, I got a bit emotional driving the car around,” said Kelly.

“The Altima ran amazingly well today. I jumped in and had the very first three laps in the car. I went out onto the track, put my foot on the clutch and knocked it into gear and drove out, warmed the tyres up and then, after a lap, stood on the throttle. I felt and heard the engine come alive and leave two big black marks down the straight as it drove off. It was unreal,” said Kelly.

After the initial shakedown of the car, which the team reports went fine, they went on to aerodynamic testing.
“Because of the weather yesterday we had to move the shakedown to today. The conditions were really perfect here, but we could only get onto the circuit between 8:30am and 12pm, so we had to get a huge amount of work done and we actually got absolutely everything done that we needed to and we were finished at 11:58am. So it worked out spot on and we couldn’t really afford to waste any time. Luckily the car ran absolutely faultlessly. We didn’t have to touch the car at all, which is amazing for it’s first run. We just got through all of our testing items and stuck it back in the truck,” said Kelly.

The Altima is built to the new Car of The Future regulations and Kelly compares his first impressions compared to the V8 Supercars he has driven in the past.
“The car is in aero test trim, so there are no brake ducts and a lot of the specification that we would race with is not actually what is in the car. The suspension (for aerodynamic testing) is different as well. So I didn’t really tip it into a corner to feel what the car would do. And I’ve only got one arm at the moment to steer the thing! As far as what it feels like, it’s just more about the look of the car, the transaxle and gearbox feels a lot different, the throttle throw and response feels different and obviously the Nissan engine. It’s good to jump in. It’s really the most ‘different’ car I’ve driven since I raced open wheelers,” said Kelly.

Next up for the team is to analyze the data from the test and to hand the car over to the V8 Supercars organisation.
“We will go back (to the workshop) and decipher all the data, which is probably a good day and a half day’s work to get the results out of what we have just done on the track. We’ve only got a few days now to put the final touches on the car that V8 Supercars have requested, little things like a couple of panels under the bonnet and bonnet seals for the aero test. We actually have to hand the car over to V8 Supercars early next week so come next Tuesday that will be the last we see of the car until the aero test. So it will be full steam ahead on production of items that we have made so far that we can produce, to get a head start on that,” said Kelly.