Rick Kelly takes maiden title

Controversy marked both ends of Kelly's season, a penalty for a near-undetectable jump start in round one was bookmarked by his final round, final race penalty for contact with Craig Lowndes.

In between, Kelly admitted he drove conservatively, copying the tactic which saw Russell Ingall clinch the title in 2005, though as in 2005, this was not always received well by all, particularly the fans.

Despite probably showing more speed during the season than Ingall did last year, he only won one race throughout the season (compared to two for Ingall in 2005) and failed to win any round overall for the year. It was not due to a lack of speed at the team, with teammate Garth Tander winning seven of the season's 34 races.

To counterbalance this however, he finished a close second at the endurance events at Sandown and Bathurst, which set up both his and Lowndes' title tilts. The enduros ended teammate Tander's hopes after the pair entered the rounds virtually equal, Tander striking trouble in both enduros.

A see-sawing battle in the closing rounds, with Lowndes' dramas in Tasmania followed by Kelly's in Bahrain, meant the title was set up for a showdown in the finale, which the final round delivered.

Rick followed in his older brother Todd's footsteps into motor racing, finishing second in the 2000 Formula Ford championship, and following it up a year later with a championship-winning performance in the Australian Drivers Championship for F3000-style cars, along with a handful of drives in the V8 Supercar series.

2002 saw his first full V8 season at the wheel of the Holden Young Lions car, ending the year 16th in the points.

He spent the next two years at KMart Racing, where he took two consecutive Bathurst 1000 victories with teammate Greg Murphy as well as his first individual win at Eastern Creek in 2004, finishing eighth overall in 2003 before improving to sixth in 2004.

For 2005 he stayed with the same team but a change of sponsorship saw them run under the HSV Dealer Team banner. The team struggled early in the year but showed pace later in the season, however it was not enough to prevent Kelly from falling back down to eighth.

In his early years, he had a reputation for being fast but crash-prone, at one time earning the nickname 'Crash Bandicoot' from some unkind V8 fans.

This year, he spent most of the season going against his natural style as he consciously racked up points rather than push harder and take risks.

Unfortunately for Kelly, rightly or wrongly, the incident with Lowndes in the final race may be what most people remember of his maiden championship season.