While the
Phillip Island 500 was a part of the Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) in 1976 and 1977, the circuit closed soon after and did not re-open until 1988. In 1990, the circuit hosted a sprint round of the championship for the first time, won by
Dick Johnson, his final round win in the ATCC. After an absence from the calendar in 1991 and 1992 as the circuit alternated with
Melbourne circuit
Sandown Raceway, Phillip Island returned to the ATCC in 1993 and
Glenn Seton went on to dominate the event, winning five of the six races held across 1993, 1994 and 1995. In
1994, rain started to fall during the formation lap for the first race and Seton was amongst many drivers to start the race from pitlane to change to wet tyres. As the rain increased, Seton quickly charged through the field and held off
Mark Skaife to win. Despite the early success of Johnson and Seton for
Ford,
Holden went on to win all seven events from 1996 to 2002.
Craig Baird won the only race of his career at the 2000 event. In a near repeat of a crash involving
Mark Larkham in 1997,
Jason Bargwanna suffered a major crash during the
2002 event when
Greg Murphy squeezed him off the track at the start of the race. The contact with the wall sent Bargwanna's car into the tyre wall and a series of rolls before it came to rest in the middle of the track. Later in the event,
Max Wilson's car suffered heavy damage when he was hit by Craig Lowndes after Wilson had been spun by
Marcos Ambrose. Meanwhile, Paul Romano was given a 150-point penalty for deliberately colliding with Rodney Forbes. The penalty saw Romano finish the season with negative points. Lowndes went on to win the next year at Phillip Island, the first round win for
Ford Performance Racing, in a rain-shortened race. The 2013 event saw
Alexandre Prémat's car leave the track at high speed and hit the driver's door of
James Courtney's car. Courtney fractured his
tibia in the incident and was forced to miss the next, and final, round of the season at the
Sydney 500. In
2014,
Jamie Whincup secured a record sixth Australian Touring Car title by winning the second race of the weekend. At the same event,
Scott McLaughlin won the first championship event for
Volvo since 1986. The
2016 event, again won by McLaughlin, was the 500th event in Australian Touring Car Championship history. In
2017, the Phillip Island round was extended to 500 km, across two races, and the Phillip Island 500 name was revived. After two years of the Phillip Island 500, the SuperSprint format returned to the event in
2019. For the first time since 2004, Phillip Island was not included in the
2020 Supercars Championship calendar in any capacity. ==Winners==