Supercars first trip to Townsville

The 2024 Townsville 500 marks 15 years since the first ever trip to the North Queensland street circuit where James Courtney and Jamie Whincup prevailed in 2009.

TWO DIFFERENT winners christened the brand-new street-parklands track at Townsville for the inaugural Dunlop 400 last weekend before a massive and enthusiastic audience.

With metronomic consistency championship leader Jamie Whincup held at bay the Toll-HRT Commodores and his TeamVodafone partner Craig Lowndes to capture a confusing time-shortened Saturday race.

Arguably either James Courtney or Lee Holdsworth would have won if not for engine woes that cut back their time in the lead.

Even more controversially Whincup escaped penalty for having turned around Jack Perkins who had been trying to stay on the tail end of the lead-lap cars, inaction by the judiciary raising eyebrows as Whincup was absolved of blame.

Whincup had an eventful race surviving not only this incident but also being hit from behind by David Reynolds and bent steering in contact with Michael Caruso.

Fortunately for Whincup problems afflicting runner-up Will Davison prevented a serious assault over the concluding stages.

Devoid of any data on his dash, Davison once engaged his pitlane speed limiter for it to reappear then once more go blank – and the sam thing happened when he switched on high beam.

The team radioed Davison that an ominous oil-surge drama required him to change his driving technique to spare the ailing motor.

He admitted, “In places I had to drive on 60 per cent throttle so it was panic stations when a late safety car closed up the field.”

Teammate Tander was also in no state to attack having “gone back to 13th in the queue and torched the brakes to make up ground. There wasn’t any car speed early until we made a mid-race change after which it was a rocket-ship.”

Making life difficult too was certain sections of the track breaking up which compromised passing opportunities by requiring different lines to be followed.

Strategically the options were to employ a long first stint with shorter fill and rear tyres or, conversely, an earlier stop for more fuel and four tyres.

Holdsworth, leading since the demise of Courtney, was rapidly honing in on Whincup when his own engine problems intervened. Immediately afterwards the first of many power-steering rack problems – over-judicious use of kerbs – materialised when Jason Richards ground to a halt bringing on a safety car.

Alex Davison went on a prolonged run at the front until he too had steering rack issues and ground to a smoky retirement.

Once the second round of compulsory stops had been served Whincup had emerged ahead by the time a second safety car bunched the field for the closing dozen laps.

Tander, Will Davison and Lowndes managed to usurp Caruso with Ingall rising to sixth ahead of the Rick Kelly/Winterbottom duel resolved in that order. McConville, Todd Kelly and Dumbrell then crossed the line in close formation.

Meanwhile Johnson’s last-lap pass upon Van Gisbergen was negated by another ridiculous foreshortening of the nominal 72 laps one lap prematurely.

Afterwards Whincup was surprised to have followed the Safety Car for a lap before being called in to pit as Lowndes had been due in.

“I knew the fuel window was open but we had great strategy anyway,” said Whincup.

“It was a demanding race on drivers, the tyres and the brakes as all of them were wearing out towards the end.

Tander reflected, “Our first stop was way too long for the fill and I lost track position as a result. But I saved fuel, made some changes and turned it up towards the end.

Armed with more data for Sunday’s affair, it was obvious that a short first fill for track position was the preferred choice.

Like the previous say, turn two claimed some victims first time round with Perkins bending steering in contat with Patrizi as Tander took off in the lead until mown down and overtaken by an aggressive Courtney.

By the time he made a first scheduies stop both SBR cars had succumbed to identical steering-rack failures just a dozen laps into the race to end a frustrating weekend.

Jason Bargwanna, happy with the Sprint Gas VE, held sway for some time until pitting leaving the short-filling Whincup to emerge with the lead until an end to hostilities to effect repairs to a lifted manhole cover.

That yellow flag triggered wholesale stops from which Courtney leapfrogged the normally impeccable T8 pitstop team to gain a lead he maintained to the finish.

Caruso found to his cost he required an additional stop being a mere two litres short of the obligatory 100-litre combined fill (a problem caused a late race stop the previous day by Johnson) effectively putting him way behind.

And the issue of his radio meant Lowndes couldn near his call to pitlane and he had to mir as the race went green, much at his expense, although it prompted a fine fight back from 21st to an eventual ninth.

Forced with a long run conserving fuel and tyres, the race stabilised with Courtney leading Whincup, Tander, Winterbottom, Rick Kelly and Will Davison. However valve train problems were soon to account for both Jack Daniel’s Racing Commodores in a growing list of retirements.

With 50 laps down some wide gaps emerged between the first half-dozen cars (26-second total interval) but all this was negated by another track-related problem when the removal of the cap

Forced with a long run conserving fuel and tyres, the race stabilised with Courtney leading Whincup, Tander, Winterbottom, Rick Kelly and Will Davison. However valve train problems were soon to account for both Jack Daniel’s Racing Commodores in a growing list of retirements.

With 50 laps down some wide gaps emerged between the first half-dozen cars (26-second total interval) but all this was negated by another track-related problem when the removal of the cap on a kerb exposed two bolts that were resolved with more laps behind the Audi.

Johnson soon emerged picking off plenty of rivals en route to an excellent fifth, passing Winterbottom literally in sight of the finish.

Courtney prevailed to erase memories of his previous day’s misfortune with Whincup gaining more points over his closest adversaries Tander and Davison, Johnson, Winterbottom and a disappointed Holdsworth whose replacement motor was sluggish.

Courtney was suitably happy to score a much-needed boost to a dismal start to his season: “It is a pretty good feeling and a long time coming after a tough start to the year. The car was electric and I drove within myself. It is excellent to repay the boys and our focus now is to go for outright race wins.”

Whincup had one fruitless lunge at turn two for the lead but settled for second, saying, “His race pace was very fast and it was all about track position.

Tander regretted being stuck behind Todd Kelly for too long: “I could have biffed him out of the way, but..

A distinct success first time out, the drivers praised the venue, crowd, infrastructure, garage, the entire package, surely an event that will grow in popularity akin to Clipsal, Darwin and other favourite Supercar stops.

Tander commented, “I hope it is still alive right down to the last race at Homebush.”

For that to happen someone has to prevent the #1 FG from consistently staying on the podium.

More than 168,000 people turned out over the event’s three days and V8 Supercars chief Tony Cochrane said “this is beyond our wildest dreams.”

After the outstanding success, Townsville has been an entrenched part of the Supercars calendar which will be on display this weekend.

Image: Mark Horsburgh/Motorsport Images

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