Winton Raceway To Host Festival of Speed In August

Victoria's Winton Motor Raceway will play host to the third annual Festival of Speed in August.

With an expected turnout of 250 historic racing and display cars, the weekend will be a journey back into Australia's motor racing history.

Similar in concept to the famous Goodwood Revival (the Goodwood Festival of Speed being a hill-climb event), the Festival of Speed is a nostalgia-laden journey through sixty years of Australian motorsport. 

Some of the cars appearing at Winton in August will have raced at the track in their day, with the venue hosting races since 1961.

Touring cars ranging from early Falcon GTs and Monaros through to the fire-breathing turbo cars of the eighties will all grace the tarmac, along with machinery stretching back to the 1950s and beyond.

Festival Committee chairman Ian Ross is confident that the event will continue to grow in its third year.

"Research has shown that people from all Victoria and New South Wales came to the last Festival and, as the event is becoming larger and better known, spectator numbers are expected to increase."

The event will see a number of different events on the 'long' circuit.

The Rose City Touring Car Trophy will be decided by qualiyfing and a V8 Supercar-style Top Ten Shoot-Out, and the race will be over 25 laps with a mandatory pit-stop.

Group C and Group A racers with 'genuine racing pedigree' will also have their own race, bringing the homologation specials of the late '80s and early '90s together on the track.

The busy weekend will also feature open-wheelers such as Formula Ford, Formula 2 and Formula Vee and plenty of action from various other categories, including the MG single-make race.

The event is part of a series of three rounds that make up the Victorian Historic Racing Register's annual championship, with the other two events taking place at Sandown and Philip Island.

The Winton Festival of Speed will take place over the weekend of August 11 and 12.