1987 Sandown 500

[RaceTime]

The reason for the 84 500 being run on the modified track was the World Sports Car round in November (think it was November - that or October) - because it required a minimum track distance of 3.6 km the upgrade (hah! a misnomor if ever there was one) required the inside running and the modified T1/2/3 section and new pit garages to accomodate the ego's errr cars in the FIA GT Championship (still have a program from that meeting around here somewhere).

[William Dale Jr]

Yeah, it was November. No-one really liked the new layout and, from memory, most of the regulars thought they'd ruined it... The meeting was a bit of a disaster, really; the track surface started breaking up quite badly in places (the Palmer/Lammers Porsche got 12 punctures and finished on the podium!), hardly anyone turned up to watch, and the LCCA lost a whole heap of money over the meeting. Knowing all that, you have to question their decision to do the exact same thing four years later...

EDIT: Incidentally, in the same book that I found the Keogh pic in, there's a pic of the three Rothmans Porsche 956's being driven down the highway from Porsche HQ to the racetrack. It's funny seeing a mega-dollar, technologically advanced machine like a Porsche 956 driving on the same road as a Kingswood

[racer69]

I didn't really mind the GP circuit, though the teams were disadvantaged when they changed the layout because it meant almost complete goings over of the cars after the race, rather than on the original circuit were it was easier on the cars and could be considered more of a shakedown.

From memory the last time the GP circuit was used for Touring Cars was for the 1988 Enzed 500, but for the 1989 Touring Car round they reverted to the Dandenong Road section of the course. The Superbikes still used the GP circuit whenever they raced there though.