VISION of the 2001 Clarion Sandown 500 – the race that revived the tradition of Melbourne’s endurance classic – has recently been re-discovered by V8 Sleuth and shared with Australian motorsport fans to enjoy.
Now uploaded to the V8 Sleuth YouTube page, the post-produced coverage aired in the aftermath of the event, which was a non-championship event run for Nations Cup and GT-Performance and GT-Production cars from the PROCAR Championship Series.
WATCH: 2001 Clarion Sandown 500 coverage
The telecast was originally aired on ‘Trackside’ on Channel 10 with commentary from Greg Rust, Craig Denyer and Damien ‘Ice’ White with Grant Denyer hosting and pit lane reporting.
The Sandown 500 was revived in 2001 three years after the last one had been held in 1998 prior to V8 Supercars taking its pre-Bathurst 500-kilometre endurance race to Queensland Raceway.
The deal for the race to be returning was announced on July 3 and the race itself held on September 16, just over two months later.
Despite the late announcement the race featured a wide array of cars in its 37-car field, headlined by the Lamborghini Diablo SVR of Paul Stokell and Steven Johnson, an array of Prancing Horse Ferrari 360 Modena Challenges including John Bowe, Craig Baird and Paul Morris among its driver line-up and a fleet of Porsche GT3 Clubsports, including Tony Quinn’s VIP car he shared with Jim Richards that the latter put on pole.
At the end of 161 laps it was the Bowe and Tom Waring-driven Ferrari that took victory, leading home the Porsche of Steve Webb and Neal Bates and the similar car of Peter Fitzgerald and Geoff Morgan that started at the rear of the grid.
19 of the 37 starters finished the race with a three-day crowd of 20,450 quoted in the aftermath.
The PROCAR cars returned to compete in the 2002 Sandown 500, won by the Diablo of Stokell and Anthony Tratt, before V8 Supercars returned to the ‘500 the following year.
