1987 Sandown 500

The 1987 Castrol 500 was a race for Touring Cars complying with Appendix C of the National Competition Rules of the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (commonly known as Group A Touring Cars). The event was staged on 13 September 1987 over 129 laps of the 3.9 km Sandown circuit in Victoria, Australia, a total distance of 503 km.

The race, the 22nd Sandown 500, was won by George Fury and Terry Shiel, driving a Nissan Skyline DR30 RS.

The race saw the Australian debut of the evolution Ford Sierra RS500. Although none of the four Sierras finished the race (two in fact did not start), the new 470 bhp (350 kW; 477 PS) model proved it would be the car to beat at 1987 James Hardie 1000. Andrew Miedecke in his Oxo Supercubes Sierra (an Andy Rouse kit car) attained provisional pole position in qualifying with a time of 1:49.45 before his weekend ended when co-driver Don Smith rolled the car at the end of pit straight, just prior to the end of qualifying. Dick Johnson went even better in the Dulux Dozen runoff for pole with a time of 1:47.59, almost two seconds quicker than Miedecke's time earlier in the day. This time would remain the fastest ever Group A touring car time recorded on the 3.9 km long international circuit.

Peter Brock attracted pre-race criticism for his decision to have Channel 7 television commentator Neil Crompton as the lead driver of the Mobil 1 teams second Holden Commodore with accusations of it being nothing more than a PR exercise after the bad press the team had received in 1987 in the wake of Brock's split with Holden. However, despite his relative lack of experience in touring cars, Crompton put in a credible performance and ended up in 11th place after the Dulux Dozen. With new Bridgestone tyres and an adjustable rear end developed by the team that allowed negative camber of the rear tyres transforming the handling of the Commodore, plus some extra engine development up to and following the Spa 24 Hours bringing power up to a respectable 420 bhp (313 kW; 426 PS), Brock himself qualified fifth, only a couple of tenths behind Allan Grice's Les Small prepared Roadways VL Commodore and some 1.5 seconds faster than Larry Perkins in the older model VK. Both Grice and Perkins were running engines with approximately 40 bhp (30 kW; 41 PS) more than the HDT cars.

...
Wikipedia