Sandown 500

[Crash Test]

Probably a bit late to post a thread on who will win, but I reckon the Porshes are looking good.

Interesting that they have opened it up to all classes, wasn't the original intention by splitting them up not to have such massive speed disparities between the cars, especially in the enduros? There is about 20sec difference between the slower C&D cars to the Lambos etc...now that is scary- people are going to be lapped within 4 laps.

[racer69]

I think the reason the class C & D cars were in was because there were not enough Nations Cup cars entered, which was a shame. Where was the Jag, BMW Z3 Roadster, Rusty French Viper, 2nd Lambo, plus the likes of Richards, Morgan and so on who only raced in the saterday sprint.

It was a mistake i reckon to have a sprint on the saterday for Nations Cup and GT Performance, drivers with a championship chance would always choose the points race over the enduros, hopefully next year they might get something on the support list like Group N and Sports Sedans to replace the Nations Cup and GT Performance sprints, so they can concentrate on the big one and that would allow more cars to enter, but that is for next year, at least they had a full field on the grid, and should build for the future.

[marcus]

John Bowe got up for the win...well done Bowey ..although my local paper decided to show a picture of him in the CAT Falcon which many people I talked to believe is the car he won in

[Emfa]

Good to see JB back in the winner's circle again. Congrats to the whole team (PHR?).

Originally posted by marcus
... although my local paper decided to show a picture of him in the CAT Falcon which many people I talked to believe is the car he won in

Ain't the press great!

[Vandas]

Okay guys,

The word is that the reason a lot of the cars only ran on Saturday is because they have been worked so hard to ring every ounce of speed out of them that cars like Noske's Ferrari wouldn't make 100kms let alone 500.

The 500 is a test of a cars endurance as you know, and cars that have been put under so much stress would never make it. Imagine a Sports Sedan trying to do a 500 hehehehehe.

Also good news for all the QLDers.

The Victorian Arm of the IPRA has been meeting with the heads of PROCAR recently, and it looks like we will be running at a number of their events next season.

The problem is that we cannot become a National Championship. If this happens we have to guarantee certain numbers in fields at every race, and we have to pay **** loads of money to CAMS and PROCAR.

So we want to be an associated category.

I will keep you posted.

Cameron

[racer69]

A solution to this problem would be to make all the Nations Cup races single longer distance races, maybe 200km or so, like other GT championships around the world, that way the 500 would still be an enduro test, but they would be usually prepared for a longer distance.

[Crash Test]

I don't think it is the state of preperation that is the problem- these are very temporamental race cars, much like Sports Sedans, and they really don't like being punished for hours on end.

Another thing that has been puzzling me- the guy who won the race with Bowe last raced in England in 1996. How could he have a current license? Also knowing what CAMS is like on international licensing things, I thought it would have been tough for him to be elligible...surely the winning car didn't have a P-plate?

[racer69]

I was wondering the same thing, but then when Williamson drove at Bathurst in 98 and the second Volvo in ST in 99 his last race was in a GT race in china in 1996, so who knows.

Its good that procar have signed a long term contract, secures the future of the event.

[Buckshot]

Watched the 500 on TV the other day and what a shame Channel 10 had to butcher the race to peices to make it fit their needs. Hopefully next year it will getter better television support.

One thing I liked about the 500 was that most of the PROCAR classes were all back on the track together like they used to be a couple of years or so ago.

Hopefully next year they will let the Utes enter the 500 as well.