![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/News_NissanSmuggle12HrA-1024x576.jpg\")
Nissan Australia smuggled an Altima into the Bathurst 12 Hour at the height of Supercars\u2019 war with the event. Pic: an1images.com \/ Dirk Klynsmith<\/p>\nSUPERCARS champion Rick Kelly was threatened with being blocked from partaking in the 2015 season at the height of tensions between the V8 category and the Bathurst 12 Hour.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the revelation shared by former Nissan Australia CEO Richard Emery, a decade on from Supercars infamously opting to schedule a pre-season SuperTest at Sydney Motorsport Park on the same weekend as the 12 Hour.<\/p>\n
Nissan Australia at the time was striving to strengthen its ties to the marque\u2019s global motorsport arm Nismo after a somewhat shaky start to life in Supercars with the Altima.<\/p>\n
But Supercars itself was in no mood to budge on its turf war with the 12 Hour, its ploy effectively depriving the international GT3 event of any Aussie V8 stars.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan was to have (Katsumasa) Chiyo, Rick (Kelly) and Alex Buncombe drive the car,\u201d Emery told the V8 Sleuth Podcast powered by Autobarn.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then Supercars put the test on the same weekend. So I went to see James Warburton and Shane Howard, who are now actually both back in charge, and it\u2019s probably the most angry I have ever been in a meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe looked at how we\u2019re going to do this; so we said, we\u2019ll have a helicopter get Rick back and forth. And every time we said \u2018what if we did\u2019 they just said \u2018no\u2019. They weren\u2019t going to listen at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were doing what they felt was right for their organisation and obviously we were doing the same thing, I was doing the right thing by Nissan and Nismo.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey probably didn\u2019t understand, or maybe I didn\u2019t explain the context of \u2018I need Nismo onboard\u2026\u2019 but anyway they became intransient.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time we came up with a different solution, they said \u2018no\u2019. I spoke to helicopter companies about how quick we could Rick between Bathurst and Sydney Motorsport Park and it just became intransient.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nissan Australia smuggled an Altima into the Bathurst 12 Hour at the height of Supercars\u2019 war with the event. Pic: an1images.com \/ Dirk Klynsmith<\/p>\n
Which led to the sensational threat to bench the 2006 Supercars champion if he chose the 12 Hour over the SuperTest.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I said is \u2018if we don\u2019t run Rick (at the test) and we run somebody else?\u2019 and they said \u2018well he can\u2019t race in the championship\u2019,\u201d Emery noted.<\/p>\n
Nissan went on to win the 12 Hour without Kelly as Chiyo, Wolfgang Reip and Florian Strauss co-piloted a GT-R to a stunning triumph.<\/p>\n
Kelly meanwhile delivered four podiums and a top 10 end-of-season ranking in the 2015 Supercars Championship.<\/p>\n
Supercars later that year acquired the 12 Hour, a relationship which continues to this day.<\/p>\n
The Undercut \u2013 It\u2019s Finals Time!<\/p>\n
Breaking down the latest in the world of Supercars \u2013 Gold Coast, Sandown and more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SUPERCARS champion Rick Kelly was threatened with being blocked from partaking in the 2015 season at the height…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-277359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}