Triple Crown

[Falcadore]

Except that its not. Several times the winner of the 500 race has driven less than 400 kays after retiring in Race 1.

[Falcadore]

Got me thinking though - how many kays has the Adelaide 500 winner covered?

and it turns out memory cheats. All the winners bar one have done the full 502 km.

The odd man out? Mark Skaife in 2000 who only covered 354 km.

[Falcadore]

Today the Adelaide 500 is a 251 km race with a 251 km preliminary race to decide grid positions. Silly? Well I don't make the rules.

But if like the first year, the Adelaide 500 was to be considered a 502 km race in two parts then who did win those races?

1999 (as per)
1st Craig Lowndes (Holden Racing Team)
2nd Greg Murphy (Gibson Motor Sport)
3rd Jason Bright (Stone Brothers Racing)

2000
1st Garth Tander (Garry Rogers Motorsport)
2nd Jason Bargwanna (Garry Rogers Motorsport)
3rd Glenn Seton (Ford Tickford Racing)
4th Greg Murphy (Gibson Motor Sport)
5th John Bowe (PAE Motorsport)
6th Paul Radisich (Dick Johnson Racing)
7th Steven Johnson (Dick Johnson Racing)
etc

2001
1st Russell Ingall (Perkins Engineering)
2nd Steven Johnson (Dick Johnson Racing)
3rd Jason Bright (Holden Racing Team)
4th Mark Skaife (Holden Racing Team)
5th Tony Longhurst (Rod Nash Racing)
6th John Faulkner (John Faulkner Racing)

[Falcadore]

2002
1st Mark Skaife (Holden Racing Team)
2nd Greg Murphy (Tom Walkinshaw Racing)
3rd Craig Lowndes (Gibson Motor Sport)
4th Steven Richards (Perkins Engineering)
5th Garth Tander (Garry Rogers Motorsport)

[racer69]

Originally Posted by Falcadore

yeah but the history of the Sandown 500 is so varied, some years it wasn't the same category, heck the ATCC and Bathurst have only been the same category since 1973.

Plus some years the Sandown 500 entry has been pitiful, like the early 90's. The mid 90's the field was bolsterred by production cars, then early 2000's it wasn't even a touring car race but for Nations Cup type production sports cars. Plus there is also the Queensland 500 to consider.

I just don't think the Sandown 500 stacks up to the ATCC and Bathurst in stature. Beside the moment someone does win an ATCC/Bathurst/Adelaide year, the triple crown phrase will come out.

Worth remembering that the ATCC entry at various times in it's history has been quite pitiful as well

[M-Kart]

John Bowe has sort-of claimed a triple crown - 3 events in succesion, just not in the same year - Bathurst 94, ATCC 95 & Sandown 95. Add sandown 94, and thats 4 in a row!

And as for the Qld500 - that only ever ran when the sandown 500 was not for the ATCC cars - so i would have thought that QLD takes sandowns place. But since no one won the triple crown in those years using the Qld500 or sandown500 (nations cup version), i dont think its really an issue in the end.