40 years on: Brock and Perkins win the first Sandown 500

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Sandown endurance race that began as a Six Hour international event back in 1964, however it also marks the 40th anniversary of the race first being held as a 500-kilometre event.

The change was made in 1984 after the race had been run under various distance-inspired banners during its life; namely three hours (introduced in 1968), 250 miles (introduced in 1970) or 400 kilometres (introduced in 1976).

The 1984 race – won by Peter Brock and Larry Perkins’ brand-new, day-glo Holden Dealer Team Commodore VK, dubbed the ‘last of the big bangers’ – was the first race held on the newly-extended Sandown circuit.

Extended by 800 metres with the additional of a snaking ribbon of bitumen through the infield, the circuit modifications gained Sandown the required length for hosting international events.

Drivers immediately lamented the loss of the Sandown track that they had known with its fast and flowing nature that allowed for some of the best all-time Holden and Ford contests being consigned to the history books.

And it also meant that the race length was extended to 500 kilometres for the first time, meaning all teams would be required to use two drivers per car, rather than the solo driver format that had generally been that used by top teams in the past for the annual Bathurst warm-up race.

The field was strong with a total of 37 starters, but early on it looked that perhaps luck wasn’t going to be on eventual winner Brock’s side.

He suffered a rear tyre puncture, but fortunately was close to the new pit lane entry and was able to dive into the pits replace it without losing much time.

Another tyre drama – this time a slow puncture – affected Perkins when he climbed aboard the #05 Commodore for the ‘lunchtime shift’, meaning that the early race pace setters were Dick Johnson’s Australian Touring Car Championship-winning Palmer Tube Mills XE Falcon and Allan Grice’s brand-new Roadways VK Commodore.

But the big green Falcon and the best privateer Commodore both later fell victim to gearbox failure from the stress placed on the drivelines by the tight infield part of the course.

Brock took the lead on lap 89 of 129 and controlled the rest of the race. He and Perkins finished a lap clear of the Allan Moffat/Gregg Hansford Mazda RX7 with the second HDT car of John Harvey and David Parsons two laps down in third place.

HDT debutante Parsons even had to deal with the drama of a damaged door latch that forced him to catch the driver’s door as it flung open around the corners!

But no one could stop Brock taking his ninth – and ultimately his final – victory in the Sandown endurance race and he did it in the debut of a car that has since entered Australian touring car racing folklore.

The win marked Perkins’ first of three Sandown 500 wins as he later added victories in his own team’s cars in 1992 (with Steve Harrington) and 1998 (with Russell Ingall).

Perkins’ son Jack will return to tackle the Penrite Oil Sandown 500 this year as co-driver with James Courtney of the #7 Snowy River Caravans Mustangs for the Blanchard Racing Team.