James McFadden salutes in inaugural Fifty for 50 as Warrnambool drivers clean up podium

The Monte Motorsport ace led from start to finish of Saturday night's 50-lap feature surviving a number of restarts and making use of the mid-race seven-minute open red pitstop to hold off Jamie Veal and Darren Mollenoyux.

McFadden started the feature on pole after edging out Marcus Dumsney in dash one. with Corey McCullagh and Jamie Veal on the second row. Mollenoyux started alongside opening night winner Lachie McHugh.

McHugh's race ended with 20 laps to go after he came under pressure from Mollenoyux and ran into the turn four wall, catching Grant Anderson and Matt Reed in the incident.

McFadden was pleased with the win but said it was a different experience to the others he has had.

"Obviously 25 laps isn't our normal race and you normally have to conserve tyres and stuff like that," he said.

"But I learnt a lot on the first night about not having to conserve tyres with the way the track is. I took that in the first session and see how free we could get our car and how much I could abuse the tyre.

"I learnt a lot and then basically got the car really, really good after that in the stoppage and was lucky enough to get the win."

McFadden said a plan was devised before the feature for the scheduled seven-minute open red.

"Just to get there was the number one goal and not wear my car out to get there and learn as much as we could and move around and basically everything we did went to plan," he said.

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"The stoppage we discussed beforehand and had a really good plan. Our plan basically went exactly how it was so that helps.

"We have a really good crew and could just get it done and do as many changes as we needed to so happy days."

McFadden and Veal battled for most of the night as they tried to negotiate lapped traffic with the reigning Australian champion coming close to taking the lead throughout the feature.

The two-time classic champion was confident he could hold off Veal and claim the $15,000 prizemoney.

"After that pitstop our car wasn't great but we knew we weren't going to be and then we had a big swing at an option to go faster and I have ran that set up before and it's worked," he said.

"So I knew if I hit my marks and waited for the lapped cars to make a mistake and I could capitalise on it and not waste any of those we would be pretty good. It all worked out to plan.

"It was a really tough track to pass and you had to be super committed to the fence on the exit as we found out with a couple to go in the first session and basically did it the whole race."

In a crash riddled B-main Brett Milburn earnt his spot in the feature with a victory. He was joined by Jake Smith, Reed and Jessie Attard.

The C-main was won by Warrnambool's Peter Doukas with Joel Henrich, Kristy Ellis and Scott Enderl joining him in the B-main field.

McCullagh, Dumsney, Brayden Parr, Veal, and McFadden took out heat wins.

Earlier in the night Mollenoyux sent the quickest time in qualifying with a 11.658s. He pocketed $500 for his efforts.

Lisa Walker scored $2500 for having the best presented car of the weekend.

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