As we countdown to the biggest event on our calendar, Zak Caban takes a deep dive into the 4th instalment of the Pitcher Partners #Sydney300, and all the history created on a cool Saturday night last July.

History was made, records were broken, and stats were either created, or re-written, in another exhilarating chapter in 300 history.

• Benny Tran (BYP Racing) notched up his first Sydney 300 win, and Honda’s first as well – the third different team and manufacturer to win the Sydney Motorsport Park enduro.
• Tran became just the third driver, behind Mr MRA (Terry Denovan) and Todd Herring, to win one of these 300km races flying solo.
• Tran broke a 791-day drought for Division A. It was the first win for a car in the outright division, since Todd Herring Racing’s win in the 2021 Pitcher Partners Sydney 300, which, incidentally, was the last time the pole car won a ‘300’.
• It was the 13th time a Division A (or 1) car has claimed outright honours in the 300’s, across the board, dating back to the inception of the concept in 2008.
• A total of 59 vehicles registered their interest to contest the 2023 Pitcher Partners Sydney 300. Not only was that a new record for the event, it was also three more than the track density of 56.
  We saw seven cars withdraw their entry prior to the event, while a further four withdrew from the event between Friday night’s unofficial practice, and race start on Saturday evening, leaving us with a field of 48, which was a new record for the Sydney Motorsport Park incarnation of the 300’s, and an 11.62% increase on 2022, when 43 cars greeted the starter.
• Todd Herring’s race record wasn’t eclipsed, but Tran’s win, in 2:26:14.1931, became the second-fastest Sydney 300 on record.
• ALL pre-existing lap records were broken last year, as was expected, given changes to division time brackets since 2021 (the last time we had dry weather for the Sydney 300), with Benny Tran lowering his pre-existing practice record to 1:38.7836 (-0.5834), and the race lap record to 1:39.1220 (-0.0321).
  Where it got interesting, was with the qualifying lap record, because the BMW M4 of Adrian Wilson, Lloyd Godfrey and Josh Buchan punched out a 1:37.8292 (-1.4511 faster than the 2021 pole time, set by Todd Herring), which is below the fastest legal lap time permitted in the Pitcher Partners Sydney 300 (1:38.0000), but because it wasn’t rubbed out by race officials, and the BMW M4 brought the field to green, it stands as the record for now, and the margin between first and second (+0.3997) was the second-tightest fight for pole in Sydney 300 history.
  That said, had it been rubbed out, as many of us suspected it would be, we would’ve been left with Todd Herring pipping Benny Tran for pole, by 0.0412… it would’ve been the second (now third) smallest pole winning margin in the history of the format.
• Even more interestingly, with the revised driver line-up of that car, it was back-to-back poles for Buchan and Godfrey, but a maiden Sydney 300 pole for Adrian Wilson, one better than his efforts in 2022, and history will show that the pole curse struck again… on only five occasions, in sixteen years, have we seen the pole car go on to claim outright honours.
• It was BMW’s sixth pole position in 300 history… their first Sydney 300 pole win.
• While the reasons for it weren’t clear, the pole car copped a 5-lap penalty in the 2023 race… the second time Buchan and Godfrey have received that invoice in a Sydney 300… the last being in 2021, which also cost them the outright win.
  The penalty saw the #82 BMW plummet from 4th to 23rd outright, but with only three cars running in Division A, and Todd Herring finishing 16 laps down, they retained 2nd in their division.
• Cem Yucel and Iain Salteri’s second outright marked the first time we’d seen a Volkswagen vehicle on an outright podium in a 300.
• Volkswagen became the sixteenth manufacturer to feature on an outright podium in 300 history, and the sixth different manufacturer to feature on the outright podium in the Sydney 300, and given it doubled as victory in Division B for the #222 entry, it was the second year running in which a Volkswagen entry had won a Division in the Sydney 300, after Oskar Butt and Troy Derwent claimed Division E honours in 2022.
• Back-to-back Division wins for Michael Ricketts and Josh Haynes Motorsport, in the former’s Nissan Pulsar, but not the same division… they won Division D here in 2022, and Division E in 2023… shades of Charlie Viola and Ben Hanrahan’s success in the Honda Integra, which they drove to Division D honours in 2019, and Division C honours in 2021.
• Speaking of the naming rights sponsor, a mechanical failure saw Charlie lose the win in Division C on the final lap, in the sort of drama that only Ed Kreamer and Stephen Thompson could relate to, and sympathise with.
  Viola managed to limp and nurse his car to the line, but not before the Mazda RX8 of Brad and Will Harris snatched the top spot in Division C, and fifth outright.
• Todd Herring’s stranglehold on Division A ended last year… mechanical drama saw him limp home 16 laps down, which was only good enough for 3rd in Division A, and 33rd outright, marking the first time the #77 hasn’t featured on the outright podium in the Sydney 300.
• For the second year running, the Anthony Soole and Adam Burgess pairing was not only second home in Division B, but also at the centre of controversy.
  Thankfully, due to the fact their fuel spill didn’t occur while the team were in the process of refuelling the BMW M4, no penalty was issued, and they stormed home in third outright (the first outright Sydney 300 podium for the pair), and were the last car to finish on the lead lap.
• Just as we saw in 2019 and 2021, the Safety Car was only deployed twice throughout the 77-lap race.
• There were 7 different race leaders (a Sydney 300 record), and 8 lead changes throughout the night, which equalled the record number of lead changes in a Sydney 300, first achieved in 2021.
• Jett Herring became the youngest driver to lead a lap in Sydney 300 history (Laps 27-28), while Anthony Soole and Adam Burgess led the most laps (23).
• There were 13 retirements throughout the 2023 edition, meaning 35 cars (72.92% of the field) greeted the chequered flag… it’s a record in terms of the number of cars making it to the finish (surpassing the 33 that finished the race in 2022), but not by percentage.
• Mazda won two divisions in a Sydney 300 for the first time since 2019.
• Benny Tran now holds the record for the biggest winning margin in Sydney 300 history as well, at 50.6067 seconds, surpassing Todd Herring’s 2021 margin of +48.2475.
• For the second year in a row, the winner of the Sydney 300 started from third on the grid.

Grid positions #3 and #4 have produced more 300 winners than any other, with 9 each.
Records are there to be broken, though, and we look forward, with great anticipation, to another great chapter, in the storied history of these 300km races, when we bring you the 2024 Pitcher Partners Sydney 300, on May 18