Townsville has been a marquee event for the Repco Supercars Championship since first appearing on the calendar in 2009.
The Reid Park Street Circuit differs from regular street courses as approximately 70 percent of the lap takes place on specially constructed roads within the parkland.
Triple Eight’s Jamie Whincup is the undisputed ‘King’ of the Townsville event, having taken 12 race victories there since taking out the inaugural race in 2009.
The next most successful driver is teammate Shane van Gisbergen with five victories, underlining the Triple Eight team’s affinity with the venue.
Ahead of the NTI Townsville 500, let’s take a look back at 10 memorable moments from Supercars history in Townsville.
2009 – The inaugural Townsville event kicked off with a first career Supercars pole position for Garry Rogers Motorsport’s Lee Holdsworth, before Jamie Whincup and James Courtney split the race wins.
2011 – Whincup stamped his authority on the North Queensland venue by leading home teammate Craig Lowndes in a Sunday one-two aboard TeamVodafone Commodores sporting a special camouflage livery.
2012 – David Reynolds became the second driver to score a career-first pole in Townsville, snaring the number one starting spot in Sunday’s Top 10 Shootout.
2013 – Will Davison took a fine Saturday win for Ford Performance Racing, only to tag the concrete with his Pepsi Max Falcon while performing his victory donuts!
2013 – Garth Tander snapped a near two-year losing streak for the Holden Racing Team with victory in the Sunday race, leading home teammate James Courtney in a one-two.
2014 – Jason Bright scored pole position for the Sunday race over Whincup by just 0.0005 seconds after fastest qualifier Craig Lowndes was given a grid position penalty for an on-track incident on Saturday.
2015 – Mark Winterbottom’s domination of the early part of the season continued in Townsville, taking a double victory aboard his FG X Falcon en route to the championship title.
2019 – A dramatic Sunday race started with a clash between Scott McLaughlin and David Reynolds, featured rain and a Nick Percat pit lane fireball, and ended with victory for Shane van Gisbergen.
2020 – Brad Jones Racing swept both pole positions on Sunday in the second of two Townsville events in 2020; Todd Hazelwood’s pole for the finale a career-first and backed up by Percat in a front-row lockout.
2020 – The third race of the second event ended in controversy; winner Shane van Gisbergen elbowed Scott McLaughlin wide to enable Whincup to also sneak through on the Shell Ford as the title fight heated up.
