MARK Winterbottom will become the third driver in history to chalk up 600 Supercars Championship races when the category heads to Wanneroo Raceway later this month.
Winterbottom is due to reach the milestone in the opening race of the Bosch Power Tools Perth SuperSprint.
He’ll join Craig Lowndes (675) and Garth Tander (642) in the exclusive club, which may not have another addition for quite some time.
The next two closest active drivers are James Courtney (532) and Will Davison (524), who’ll need to race on full-time into the 2025 season to be a shot at the 600 club.
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Perth is somewhat a fitting location for Winterbottom’s occasion, as the site of his most recent podium.
The 41-year-old is in the middle of a five-year, 147-race podium drought stretching back to Race 1 of the 2018 Perth SuperSprint, when he was still at Tickford Racing.
All up, Winterbottom has seven main game wins at Wanneroo, placing him behind only Lowndes (16) and Mark Skaife (eight).
There have been several near misses for Winterbottom during his Team 18 tenure, with six fourth-place finishes for the Charlie Schwerkolt squad.
Gen3 was flagged by Winterbottom and Schwerkolt as a major opportunity to make progress, and there have been some promising signs for the #18 DeWalt Camaro.
Winterbottom jagged a pair of top 10 results at Newcastle and showed especially strong speed at Albert Park, only for opening lap incidents in Races 2 and 3 of that round to cost him dearly.
He holds 12th in the championship heading into the April 28-30 event in Western Australia.
