Left: Team Vodafone pairing Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup display the spoils of their Sandown 500 victory on Sunday.
By Paul Pickering
DANDENONG’S resident rev-heads returned to Sandown Raceway on the weekend for the 40th running of the iconic Just Car Insurance Sandown 500, with Team Vodafone duo Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup outlasting all-comers in their BF Falcon.
Meanwhile, a second placing for Rick Kelly and co-driver Paul Radisich was enough for Kelly to wrest the championship lead from Toll HSV Dealer Team comrade Garth Tander.
The first endurance race of the V8 Supercars season proved to be exactly that, with the Triple Eight Racing team utilising a double change strategy to place Lowndes at the wheel as light rain fell during the final laps.
In a typical display of poise and supreme control, Lowndes shut out Kelly in the slippery run to the line.
Earlier, pole-sitter Mark Winterbottom led the race for the opening 47 laps before deferring to part-time V8 Supercar driver Matt Halliday.
Despite Halliday’s best efforts to keep his Ford Performance Racing Falcon at the head of the field, he faded in the latter stages to finish eighth.
While the inclement weather threw a late challenge at the drivers, it was the confusion of lapping cars that almost doomed Lowndes’ tilt at a fourth Sandown 500 title.
Ironically, it was a misunderstanding with Greg Murphy – who paired with Lowndes to go back-to-back at Sandown in 1996-97 – that disrupted the winner’s run through the field, as Murphy mistakenly believed he was racing for position rather than being lapped.
Ford pairing Steven Richards and Owen Kelly finished the race 10 seconds adrift of Rick Kelly and Radisich, while the Tander/Craig Baird Commodore cruised in for fourth.
Tander’s defence of the championship lead was dealt a harsh blow with just 40 laps to go as the number 16 Commodore was penalised 30 seconds for a malfunctioning pit lane speed limiter light.
As a result, Kelly has seized back the championship lead from Tander by nine points, with Whincup a further 45 points behind in third place as the series heads to Mount Panorama on 4 to 7 October.
Having conquered the Sandown circuit, Lowndes and Whincup will be strong favourites to win their second straight Peter Brock Trophy.
