Admittedly, Victoria doesn’t enjoy good weather most of the time and it generally saves its worst for when it’s the Sandown 500.
There have been some crazy moments in treacherous conditions at the circuit situated 25km from Melbourne’s CBD.
Years such as 1997, 1998 and the 500’s return to its spiritual home in 2003 when hail hit the circuit spring to mind when bad weather is mentioned.
And it appears the weather will be like this when the Repco Supercars Championship arrives on September 13-15.
Check out some of the instances below.
Tickford 500, 1997
Craig Lowndes and Greg Murphy scored back-to-back Sandown 500 wins, but arguably this was one of the toughest both in terms of the competition as the event became an essential pre-Bathurst warm up and the weather.
Unusually for the time, the race started under control of the safety car, with resurfaced areas across the track including the approach to Turn 1 had been resurfaced. The oil out of the new bitumen compound made the track very slippery.
Tickford 500, 1998
If 1997 was bad, the following year was worse as aquaplaning was prevalent especially at Turn 1. Although there is no full race coverage of this event on YouTube, the conditions can be viewed in the video below of Wayne Gardner grappling and losing control of his Coca-Cola Commodore. Larry Perkins and Russell Ingall added a Sandown 500 tile to their Bathurst victory in 1995.
Betta Electrical Sandown 500, 2003
This marked the return of the 500 to Sandown after a stint at Queensland Raceway and boy did Melbourne welcome it back.
The race started in sunny conditions, but it turned ugly very quickly starting to rain on lap 112. This was followed amazingly by hail, which appeared like snow around the circuit.
The safety car was forced to enter the circuit as Supercars lay stricken around the circuit.
It provided an exciting conclusion to the event with a final showdown between Mark Skaife and Jason Richards. A move by Richards to give Team Dynamik the race victory failed to come off at Turn 9 ending his race at the sand trap allowing Skaife to take a miraculous win despite an electrical problem.
Don’t Drink Drive Sandown 500, 1992
Now this isn’t due to Mother Nature, but water caused chaos at the 1992 event in a different way as can be viewed below.