{"id":467358,"date":"2026-02-08T23:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T23:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/467358\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T23:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T23:34:16","slug":"the-craig-lowndes-rick-kelly-parallels-20-years-on-from-2006-phillip-island-title-scrap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/467358\/","title":{"rendered":"The Craig Lowndes, Rick Kelly parallels 20 years on from 2006 Phillip Island title scrap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WHAT\u2019S that saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer?<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps there are slight undertones of it applying to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-6-Craig-Lowndes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Craig Lowndes<\/a>\u2019 next chapter as Supercheap Auto\u2019s wildcard program begins its Team 18 era.<\/p>\n<p>One of the first key announcements about their 2026 Tailem Bend and Bathurst campaign came this morning, as Lowndes reclaimed the #15 with which he\u2019d started his ATCC\/Supercars Championship career.<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, Lowndes increasingly became associated with #888. In fact, it\u2019s the number he has run in 456 of his past 457 main game races.<\/p>\n<p>All the while, #15 became synonymous with another driver: Rick Kelly.<\/p>\n<p>Lowndes and Kelly famously duked it out for the title 20 years ago, with the latter getting up in a controversial Phillip Island decider.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/2006-v8-supercar-championship-series-highlights-dvd?utm_source=SRBuyButton&amp;utm_medium=website\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/BHE7968_1024x1024.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The first driver to sport #15 after Lowndes had done it so successfully in seasons 1996 and \u201998 was actually Kelly\u2019s older brother Todd.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018TK\u2019 used it across 1999-2002, initially in a Holden Young Lions entry and then under the Kmart Racing Team banner, picking up three race wins before signing with the Holden Racing Team.<\/p>\n<p>That opened the door for Rick to take over the #15 seat, and they\u2019ve been virtually inseparable ever since Adelaide 2003.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, no driver in history has more ATCC\/Supercars round starts with a particular car number than Rick Kelly\u2019s 226 with the #15. That journey included the 2006 championship and stints with Holden, Nissan and Ford. #15 has not appeared in a race since Kelly\u2019s retirement at the end of 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, second on the aforementioned list (most starts by a driver with a certain number) is Lowndes\u2019 208 rounds with #888.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770593656_963_Brown-Lowndes-888-DSC06811-2-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-246204\"  \/>Craig Lowndes recently gave <a href=\"https:\/\/www.v8sleuth.com.au\/stats-driver-1292-Will-Brown\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Will Brown<\/a> his blessing to take over #888. Pic: Supplied<\/p>\n<p>There is another Kelly\/Lowndes parallel to observe with a view to 2026.<\/p>\n<p>That is, that Team 18 will run its wildcard Camaro out of a transporter acquired from none other than Kelly Racing.<\/p>\n<p>Team owners Charlie Schwerkolt and Todd Kelly struck a deal last year as KR prepared to withdraw from Super2.<\/p>\n<p>Having never previously operated a third car, Team 18 had needed to find an additional transporter to complement its existing one that carries the squad\u2019s full-time #18 and #20 Camaros.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHAT\u2019S that saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer? Perhaps there are slight undertones of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-467358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467358","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=467358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}