Sensational Festival of Speed
The 2024 edition of the Winton Festival of Speed ran faultlessly with huge crowds attending the event across a massive three days of motorsport action.
Not only were the crowds huge during the racing, lining the fence around the 3.0km circuit, but many stayed at the venue, the Winton campsite was packed.
There was plenty to enjoy on track with non-stop action, however there was as much to see off it.
Thanks to Shannons there were car displays all around the venue with over 500 rare and unique cars on show across the weekend. Throughout the event the skidpan got plenty of use, it was certainly an unmissable event.
On track there were many highlights, one of which was the Combined Group C and Group A Heritage Touring Car races.
These races featured cars that competed in the Australian Touring Car Championship in the 70s and 80s, the cars that claimed race wins and Bathurst podium finishes back in the day.It also featured a couple of invited vehicles, and it was one of these that claimed the race wins. Both the combined races were won by a slightly newer machine in the hands of David Holc.
Holc dominated the feature race, winning by nearly 30s in his Group 3A era Ford Falcon formally driven by 1980 Formula 1 World Champion Alan Jones.
In the Sprint race Holc was challenged by Brian Henderson in his Nissan Bluebird, but the Japanese machine suffered a mechanical issue in the Feature.This left the Walkinshaw Commodore of Adrian Allisey to finish in second ahead of the VH Commodore driven by Stephen Axisa.
Trent Harrison finished fourth in the ex-Colin Bond Alfa Romeo GTV6 with Kyle Alford in his Nissan GTS HR31 rounding out the top five and highlighted the variety within the category.
In total there were 30 machines with Supercars PremiAir Racing team boss Peter Xiberras finishing 15th in his VK Commodore.Thirty-four cars lined up on the grid for the Group S and Invited Tourist Trophy Feature Race. Joseph Di Bartolo driving his Chevrolet Corvette fought off the challenge of his rivals in their Porsches, Alexander Webster beat Douglas Barbour to second by less than 0.7s.
The Group N & Invited Just Cars Touring Car Cup 50Km went down to the wire, it was a photo finish.Peter McNiven in his Mazda RX2 beat the dominant force, Brad Tilley by less than 0.1s.The much-loved Historic Sports Sedans continue to turn heads, it was a familiar face and familiar car that won the three races, South Aussie Simon Pfitzner in the iconic Mercedes 450 SLC.
Formula Ford had several high-profile drivers up front. The feature went the way of Nick McBride, but boy did he have to work for it, he beat Tom Tweedie by half a second.
The list of epic races goes on and on, from Formula Vee to HQ Holdens and the Alfa Romeos.
The regularity affairs proved quite popular also and were spread across the weekend mixed in with all the regular races.
In total well over 300 machines were raced across the weekend, and as the name suggests it was very much a festival of all things speed.If you missed the action, you can watch it at any time on the V8 Sleuth YouTube channel.