Barney Hogan and Iain McDougall took out the 40th anniversary edition of the Viola Private Wealth Winton Enduro 300 on Sunday. Photos: Colson Photography/Winton Motor Raceway.
The Viola Private Wealth Winton 300 celebrated a big milestone at the weekend, with the 2025 edition marking 40 years since the inaugural event was held in 1985.
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From its inception through to the mid-’90s, the Winton 300 attracted some of Australian motorsport’s biggest names, with the likes of Peter Brock, along with his brother Phil, Alan Grice, Brad Jones, John Bowe, Neil Crompton and many others lining up for their shot at glory.
The 151 Mazda MX5 entry of Craig Barney during the Winton Enduro 300 40th anniversary weekend.
Despite a hiatus for some time, the race was revived in 2011 by the Australian Auto-Sport Alliance in 2011 and has gone from strength to strength since then, with a capacity grid of 40 cars lining up on Sunday for a nearly three-hour long endurance spectacle, which not only wowed fans trackside but online too, with a live stream of the event attracting significant attention.
There were five classes in action at the weekend, with cars sorted into relevant categories based on qualifying times, while a unique aspect of the event is the compulsory pit stops, with faster cars forced to serve longer pit stops, levelling out the field across the 100-lap event.
The outright podium finishers accept their trophies.
It was both quantity and quality on track at the weekend, too, with defending champions Andrew Boydell and Todd Herring returning for another crack in their Mazda MX5 entry, multiple-time champion Jimmy Tran lined up with Anthony Soole in a Honda Integra, while former champion Jason Walsh took to the start alongside Nicholas Agar in their Hyundai i30N Sedan.
But it was Barney Hogan and Iain McDougall who took out the A Class and overall honours in 2025, with the number 66 Audi RS3 LMS entry finishing 10 laps clear of second-placed A Class finishers Ben and Roger Arnold.
Spectators were treated to a brilliant weekend of action at Winton Motor Raceway.
In B Class, it was Ken Christie and Michael Luff in their BMW M3 that claimed the spoils, as well as a second-place outright edging out the Charlie Viola/Benjamin Hanrahan combination, who finished third outright, while James Hay and Paul Ansell took out C Class ahead of Ryan Bell and Troy Brisby.
D Class went the way of Daniel Hay and Chris Battista ahead of the Adriano Giorgi and William Powers pairing, while Mark Zellner and Paul Wagland saluted in E Class ahead of Fletcher and Boyd Simpson.
The number 60 Toyota GR86 entry of Johannes and Otis Craven-Sands completes a driver swap.
While the Winton 300 was the headline event, there was plenty of other racing at the weekend, with the Victorian Super TT’s taking to the asphalt across four races, with Mitchell West claiming two wins and a second from four starts to end the weekend with a haul of 42 points, the best in the over two-litre category, while Timothy Maynard’s haul of 47 points (one win, two seconds) was the most in the under two-litre class.
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