A huge crowd of more than 24,000 packed Winton Motor Raceway from Friday to Sunday and were treated to a terrific trifecta as Supercars championship leader, Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen, and Mildura’s Cam Waters staged a trans-Tasman chase for the chequered flag.
Waters would hang on by a fraction of a second to win the weekend — but van Gisbergen’s race two victory on Sunday would extend his domination of the 2022 Supercars standings to 1376 points; 281 ahead of Anton De Pasquale and 333 ahead of Waters.
And the whole weekend would be decided by 0.4 seconds and a strategic decision that would cost van Gisbergen his own double and an even bigger lead in the standings.
After Waters took the first mandatory pit stop at lap 18, van Gisbergen launched part one of his masterplan — staying out four laps longer than expected and building a significant time cushion between himself and Waters.
Part two, although a potential game-changer, saw van Gisbergen opt for three new tyres, not two, and the time wasted as his pit crew attacked the third wheel change, with the clock never slowing, would prove irreplaceable.
By the time he exploded from the pit lane, van Gisbergen had managed to turn a seemingly insurmountable advantage to a five-second deficit as the extra speed delivered by the three new wheels would not be enough even though he chewed into the leader’s time, lap after lap — until he ran out of time and laps.
Given the lap times he was clocking, one more circuit probably — and two all but definitely — would have reversed places on the podium.
Waters had set the pace in all three starts, leaping from the front line of the grid to a dominant position by the first turn in the technically demanding course before the artistry of van Gisbergen behind his wheel allowed him to go close in race one, win race two and then self-destruct in race three.
An elated Waters knew about the three-tyre change and knew what was coming — and despite van Gisbergen pulling him back, he simply couldn’t out-monster the Monster Mustang in a carbon copy of the first race on Saturday.
“I was just so pumped to get it done again,” Waters said post-race.
“Two wins this weekend (the second time he has achieved that in his career) was absolutely amazing.
“I knew with the three tyres Shane was going to come back at me, so I focused on maintaining the gap and hanging on.”
But van Gisbergen was philosophical about the outcomes, taking solace in his increased lead in the standings as the Supercars circus packs up and heads for Darwin in the middle of next month.
“The battle with Cam was awesome; he’s a really good racer,” van Gisbergen said.
“And he really knows where to place the car. I love that kind of stuff,” he added, possibly referring to finishing the race with a broken front-left wheel thanks to contact with Waters at the last corner on Saturday.
On the undercard, the Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup returned to Winton for the first time since 2013, and of the 31 cars entered for the weekend only two drivers — Marc Cini and Stephen Grove — were on the grid nine years ago.
This time around it was Harri Jones who would claim the weekend honours, but the shining light of the Carrera Cup had to be Morris Finance Pro-Am rookie Matt Belford — a winner in just his second cup start and in his home state.
David Russell also picked up his first win since 2015 — and he just missed making it a double when in the third and final winner-takes-all, Jones bolted at the start, led through turn one and was in charge all the way to the chequered flag.