BIG winners and big crashes… Townsville has become an entertaining staple of the Dunlop Series ever since the north Queensland city hosted its maiden Supercars event in 2009.
Across the past 14 years, there’s been 33 races won by 20 different drivers – a list which includes 11 Dunlop Series champions and eight Supercars Championship race winners.
Winding the clock back to ’09, the second tier got off to a mixed start in Townsville.
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Just 15 cars entered, representing the smallest field in category history.
The competition was just as fierce as ever though, with the first ever pole position decided by a mere 0.0016s as James Moffat pipped Jonathon Webb.
Moffat went on to win two of three that weekend, while the middle race (featuring a top 10 reverse grid) was taken out by Grant Denyer.
Race 2 also was the first sign of the carnage that would be on display for years to come as Paul Morris and Geoff Emery tangled on the first lap and retired on the spot.
Worse followed in Race 3 when a third of the field failed to finish.
Future Townsville grids were much healthier: 26in 2010, 28 in 2011 and 30-plus in 2013-14.
Along the way, the likes of Scott McLaughlin, Nick Percat and Morris added their names to the roll call of Townsville Super2 winners.
So did Steve Owen, whose four triumphs (two victories in each of 2010 and 2013) make him the winningest Super2 driver in Townsville history.
The driver nearest to Owen’s tally is Broc Feeney, who won three of four races across a 2021 doubleheader.
The one victory he missed went to Zak Best, who enters this year’s round as the only previous Super2 winner on the streets of Townsville.
Back to the topic of mayhem, 2009 really did set the tone.
While Turns 2, 11 and 13 are notorious hot spots, Turn 3 has been the scene of two particularly notable crashes in recent memory.
Race 2 in 2017 was red-flagged after a six-car incident there triggered by Will Brown slapping the fence eliminated his car plus those of Brodie Kostecki, Jake Kostecki, Josh Kean, Nathan Morcom and Andrew Jones.
A pile-up at the same corner four years later had ever bigger consequences as Jack Perkins’ Eggleston Motorsport Commodore went up in the flames.
Adding to the drama over the years, there’s also been victories for future main game drivers slip away.
In 2014, Cam Waters crossed the line first in Race 1 only to be handed a 30-second penalty for last-corner contact with Ash Walsh.
Macauley Jones twice looked on track to win in 2018 only to suffer a suspension failure while leading on both days.
And Waters’ current teammate Thomas Randle was stripped of his maiden Super2 race win in 2019 due to a Safety Car restart breach.
The combination of Townsville and Super2 very rarely fails to deliver – what will it bring this year across July 7-9?
