KEY POINTS:
LAUNCESTON- Holden driver Todd Kelly was close to tears after ending his V8 Supercar drought with victory in race one at Symmons Plains - a win he rated second in importance to his Bathurst triumph in 2005.
Kelly held off hard-charging series leader Jamie Whincup to clinch the race, his first of the season and first in Tasmania, while Mark Winterbottom was third.
Whincup stretched his lead over Winterbottom with the Ford rivals poised to finish one-two in the championship.
Intermittent rain played havoc with team strategy and confounded Holden polesitter Garth Tander, who ran off the track and stalled, sending him back to 20th place.
Kelly said he and his Jack Daniels Racing team were overcome with emotion after the effort they had put in all season with no return finally paid off.
"It's pretty special, I don't think anyone can understand that without knowing what it's taken to get to this point," Kelly said.
"I've been full-time at the race team every single day of the week ... I've just given it everything I've got to try to make it happen.
"I haven't won a round or anything but that one little race win is probably the most rewarding result I've had ... probably second to Bathurst with Skaifey (Mark Skaife)," he said.
"A lot of the guys had almost been reduced to tears to try and make this happen so to walk in the garage it was pretty hard not to shed a tear after the year we've had."
Unlike several of his rivals, Kelly welcomed the dismal conditions, admitting they had played a key part in his success.
"We were quite lucky that the weather came through because we didn't quite have a dry (weather) car that was capable of racing with the frontrunners," Kelly said.
"The car was quite good in the wet and I just had a ball out there. We haven't had a result obviously all year and I was either going to win it or crash.
"I was quite lucky that Jamie wanted to win the championship and not the race so it all worked out."
Both Kelly and Winterbottom complained about backmarkers blocking cars which were racing for position on the track.
"Towards the end it was quite bad, there were guys racing three-wide for what must have been near last place which brought the guys back," Kelly said.
"It was quite a critical race for strategy - there were probably two or three times where we could have easily lost that race with the safety car coming out and we only just pitted in time."
Whincup threw his pre-round thinking out when the flag dropped and decided against racing just to preserve his lead.
"It wasn't really conservative, I was going pretty hard," Whincup said.
"It was really, really tough conditions out there, semi dry at the start and then raining and then dry again.
"We were both very lucky that our main championship contender Garth had a bit of an incident down at the hairpin, but to start at the front tomorrow is very important," he said.
- AAP
