"1984 Sandown 500" redirects here. For the World Endurance Championship sports car motor race, see 1984 Sandown 1000.
Layout of the Sandown Raceway international circuit (1984-1998)The race winning Brock/Perkins Holden Commodore
The 1984 Castrol 500 was an endurance motor race staged at the Sandown Park circuit in Victoria, Australia on 9 September 1984. The event was open to Group C Touring Cars, competing in two engine capacity classes, Up to 3000cc and Over 3000cc. It also included a class for Group A cars which were to replace Group C cars in Australian Touring Car racing in 1985. The race, which was held over a distance of 503km, was Round 3 of the 1984 Australian Endurance Championship.[1]
This was the first Sandown endurance race where the distance was 500km and the first of five races on the new 3.878km (1.928mi) long 'International Circuit'. Prior to 1984 the Sandown Enduro had been held over distances including: 6 Hours (1964–65), 3 Hours (1968–69), 250 miles (1970–75) and 400km (1976-83), all held on the old 3.100km (1.926mi) circuit. The meeting also saw the opening of the new International standard Sandown Park with changes including the relocating of the pits from between turns 1 and 2 to a new $600,000 pit complex at the start of the main straight which was long enough to accommodate over 40 cars with lock-up garages for each pit. Other changes included lengthening and re-profiling of the circuit to the minimum length required for an International circuit of 3.9km, primarily by the inclusion of an 800-metre infield section, which for the first time saw the circuit cross to the inside of the venue's horse racing track.
Due to the new length of 500km, teams were required to have at least two drivers per car as no one driver was permitted to complete the entire distance without a break. This saw most teams use their upcoming Bathurst pairings.
Fury's pole time remains the fastest ever recorded time by a touring car of the 3.878km International Circuit.
1982 Australian Sports Car Champion Chris Clearihan, who was to have co-driven with David Grose in a Mazda RX-7, was excluded from the meeting after qualifying following an altercation in the pits with Allan Moffat in which punches were allegedly thrown. Moffat and Clearihan had tangled out on the circuit with a confrontation following in the pits. After Clearihan's exclusion, the 1983 Sports Car Champion Peter Hopwood who was driving in the final round of the 1984 Australian Drivers' Championship at the meeting, was given permission to take his place in the RX-7.
Race
Driving with regular co-driver and HDT team manager Larry Perkins, Peter Brock won his 9th and last Sandown enduro. The pair finishing a lap ahead of the Moffat/Gregg Hansford RX-7 with the second HDT Commodore of John Harvey and new team recruit David Parsons finishing 3rd. Early race leader Dick Johnson suffered gearbox failure on lap 37, attributed to the increased strain from the tight new infield section, while pole sitter Fury was out on lap 32 with head gasket failure. The only other car to lead the race, the Roadways Racing VK Commodore of Grice/Steve Harrington, stopped with a broken gearbox while running 2nd on lap 103. Grice had the consolation on the day of not only winning the final round of the 1984 Australian GT Championship (and subsequently his third Sports Sedan/GT national title) in his Chevrolet Monza, but also setting the fastest lap of the Sandown 500 in his new Commodore before it expired. As this was the only Group C touring car race held on the new 3.9km long international circuit, Grice's lap of 1:48.3 remains the category lap record for the circuit.
Dean Lindstrom and Larry Kogge won the Up to 3000cc class and finished 9th outright in their RX-7, 18 laps down on Brock/Perkins, while the winner of the new Group A category was Peter Williamson and Charlie O'Brien who finished 6th outright driving an ex-BTCCToyota Celica Supra formerly driven by Win Percy.
↑ Leach, Brad; Webster, Wayne (1984–85). Berghouse, Ray (ed.). "Australian Endurance Championship". Australian Motor Racing Year (14). Killara, NSW Australia: Berghouse Publishing Group: 298. ISSN0158-4138.
↑ Car No. 32 was not listed in the Official Programme
Further reading
Stewart Wilson & Max Stahl, Ford – The Racing History, 1989, page 312
Stewart Wilson, Holden – The official Racing history, 1988, page 359
Bill Tuckey, James Hardie 1000, 1984/85, pages 114–121
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