The 19-year-old was running fifth and hence on for a new career-best result when Car #22 caught fire midway through Race 2 of the weekend.
Details of the engine failure which caused the fire have now been revealed, specifically that a conrod snapped and split the sump, leading to oil spreading and thus the fire to the rear of the car.
While Kelly was able to quickly pull off and stop at a fire marshal post, the damage was extensive.
Fortunately, Kelly Racing maintains its machining and composites shop, which will be able to produce most of the replacement parts.
“It was a spontaneous failure,“ said Mason Kelly.
“The engines were still well within life, the plan was to always take them out after Perth as they still had a test day’s worth of life in them and were due to become spares.
“We suspect it’s a conrod that has gone through the sump, with the oil coming out of the engine and spreading throughout the car resulting in catching on fire.
“We don’t really talk about it, but on a track walk we always look for those flag points and just in the moment you’ve got to be on it.
“It’s a matter of trying to save the car while not being t-boned attempting to cross the track at the same time, which is bloody tricky.
“It was a fair rush to get everything packed up on its way to Melbourne, but from what we did have a look at it there appears to be a fair lot of damage. The fire was going for a fair while and everything got really hot.
“There will be a lot of brake, clutch and electrical lines in addition to a lot of hardware, which will be going in the bin. It’ll be basically stripped back to a shell and rebuilt.
“It’s gone all the way through the car as the oil spread to the back so the boot lid is burnt to a crisp and most of the panels have melted in some way.
“It’ll be a big push from everyone at Kelly Racing, not that there are many of us. Dad [Todd], Daniel, my other mechanic Mikey and myself will be going flat out to build it before Townsville.
“There will be a lot of parts we’ll need to make and that’s why we’re really lucky that we manufacture a lot of those components ourselves in the machine and composites shop.
“The good thing is we can do a lot of it in-house, but there will still be plenty to do.
“At Perth, we demonstrated the pace to be up that front and I believe we can continue this for the rest of the season.
“We’re still seeking some support to come onboard and I want to keep on fighting up the front like we did in Perth.”
Kelly’s team-mate Aaron Cameron finished fifth in both races at Wanneroo and retains second in the Dunlop Super2 Series standings on the way to Townsville on July 5-7.
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