Jack Daniel's Racing's Todd Kelly took victory in the first race of the L&H 500 at Phillip Island, just holding off Craig Lowndes at the finish.

Kelly made a good start and led from start to finish, opening a gap in the early laps before being chased down by Lowndes towards the end, who charged up the order after starting from in eighth position.

Will Davison finished third, while Shane van Gisbergen did a fantastic job to finish fourth after starting outside the top ten in 12th position, Russell Ingall doing a similar job to move up from 16th to fifth.

After starting the race from pole position, Paul Dumbrell lost out to Todd Kelly at the start and drifted down the order throughout the race, finishing just behind Ingall and just ahead of David Reynolds to take sixth place.

Just over half the field made the compulsory tyre stop to be taken in either of today's races, the highest finishing runner of those cars being Steven Richards in 15th place, the team choosing to pit despite running in the top-five in the opening laps.

Another pair of cars who took their tyre stop in the first race were the two Jim Beam Racing cars. However, their hopes of a good finish disappeared at the start, Warren Luff making a poor start and Steven Johnson making an even worse one.

Starting fifth and fourth respectively, Luff and Johnson completed lap one in 11th and 22nd places. In the end, they did well to end up third and fifth of the cars that chose to pit.

Pos  Driver                Make                  Time
 1.  Todd Kelly            Holden Commodore VE   22:29.2630
 2.  Craig Lowndes         Ford Falcon FG        +   0.4126 
 3.  Will Davison          Holden Commodore VE   +   6.4346 
 4.  Shane van Gisbergen   Ford Falcon FG        +   9.3376 
 5.  Russell Ingall        Holden Commodore VE   +  12.8469
 6.  Paul Dumbrell         Holden Commodore VE   +  13.0058
 7.  David Reynolds        Holden Commodore VE   +  13.5722
 8.  Dean Canto            Ford Falcon FG        +  19.1337
 9.  Steve Owen            Holden Commodore VE   +  20.6833
10.  Allan Simonsen        Ford Falcon FG        +  21.0229
11.  Andrew Jones          Holden Commodore VE   +  33.7245
12.  Mark McNally          Holden Commodore VE   +  37.6166
13.  Ben Collins           Holden Commodore VE   +  40.0622
14.  Dean Fiore            Holden Commodore VE   +  41.1827
15.  Steven Richards       Ford Falcon FG        +  51.9031
16.  Cameron McConville    Holden Commodore VE   +1:00.6435
17.  Warren Luff           Ford Falcon FG        +1:03.4392
18.  Lee Holdsworth        Holden Commodore VE   +1:07.4712
19.  Steven Johnson        Ford Falcon FG        +1:08.8704
20.  Daniel Gaunt          Ford Falcon FG        +1:11.0246
21.  Mark Skaife           Holden Commodore VE   +1:14.3957
22.  Greg Ritter           Holden Commodore VE   +1:20.4852
23.  Dale Wood             Holden Commodore VE   +1:21.3284
24.  Michael Patrizi       Ford Falcon FG        +1:21.7525
25.  Mark Noske            Holden Commodore VE   +1:24.8185
26.  Tony D'Alberto        Holden Commodore VE   +1:25.0850
27.  Paul Morris           Holden Commodore VE   +1:32.0717
28.  Leanne Tander         Ford Falcon BF        +1:35.4934
29.  Sam Walter            Holden Commodore VE   +   1 lap
30.  Andrew Fisher         Ford Falcon BF        +   1 lap
31.  Karl Reindler         Ford Falcon FG        +   1 lap
32.  Brad Lowe             Ford Falcon BF        +   3 laps