The National Motor Racing Museum is a must-see if you're in the central west of New South Wales. It's on the outside of Murray's Corner at the famous Mount Panorama in Bathurst and celebrates the rich history of Australian motorsport. There's famous cars, bikes, memorabilia, so much to take in, including the spectacular immersive room. It gives you an amazing taste of the speed, the sound and the excitement of the mountain. The museums generally open six days a week and also during events, so visit their Facebook page or themuseum'sbathes.com.au website for further details. A motorsport podcast network production. It's time for another RICO Rewind on the V8 salute podcast, our chance to go down memory lane of Australian touring car and V8 supercar racing on the V8 salute podcast. On this day, I wonder if you were there, September the 8th, 1996, Craig Lounds and Greg Murphy, the kick-ass kids of the Holden racing team as they were known at the time, won the Tickford 500 at Sandown in Melbourne. The Endurance Classic, it's the race that leads up to the Bathurst 1000, of course that year. Loundsie and Murph on fire. They won at Sandown, they won at Bathurst, Lounds won the championship, Murph won the New Zealand series. It was the year from heaven for the Holden racing team, but on this very day, in 1996, I was there. Were you there? Craig Lounds was there. He won the race. A great final sprint between Heath and Glenn Seton, the Ford Credit Number 30 Falcon. Remember that the previous year at the start of the race, Glenn and Craig were fighting for the lead. The Peter Jackson Falcon, the HRT Commodore, Craig got a little bit eager, didn't he? Remember that? Inside in a turn one, hard under brakes, couldn't pull it up in the sand, what five or six laps into the race and day done pretty much for 015 and the Holden racing team. So fast forward to this day in '96, no such mistakes, but it was the same two at the other end of the race who were fighting it out. Glenn Seton on board, Car Number 30, sharing with David Parsons, Skippy Parsons, and of course, Lounds in the car, having had Greg Murphy co-driving with him during the course of the day. Glenn led in the closing stages. Craig closed in that V8 engine in the Ford Credit car. I think for a memory, it fluffed down onto seven cylinders at one point and Craig got to run on him down the pit straight and the crowd went bananas. It was that time when Lounds was really emerging, lots of big Holden fans were getting on board the Lounds train and he charged on through to take the lead in the closing stages and it was a two-car fight because they were a long way in front of the third place car of Peter Brock and Thomas Mezerer to the point where by the time they crossed the line, Lounds crossed a second and a half clear of Glenn, but Brock back in third was about another 38 seconds behind his teammate to end up rounding out the podium. But so many things to actually go back through that you might remember from on this day on our RICO Rewind from September the 8th, remember that it was the Tickford 500. But if you looked at all the Holden's, they had clipped off the Tickford part of the event sticker on the side of their car because in the supplementary regulations, it didn't say that you had to run it. So they just hacked the bit off that was a clashing partner. Of course, Tickford the Ford performance arm at the time for road cars and they'd become the sponsor of the Sandown race for '96 for this race, a role that they held for a couple of years with John Davison, the promoter at the time at Sandown, but yeah, that got a few Ford people's noses out of joint. But this was also the day that really made for the decision for Larry Perkins, who finished fifth with Russell Ingall, to go change for Bathurst, remember that he swapped to the old VP model Commodore because in the lead up to Sandown, the powers that be, the performance review committee, I think it was from memory, basically it was all about the parody. The Commodore's all had a section of their front under trade chopped off as a result of the domination of Holden and the championship, but the reality was it was really the Bridgestone shot HRT cars that had generally done the dominating, but it triggered all the changes and that was made and of course, Larry struggled in the early stages with a big queue of cars behind him at Sandown to the point where he went to the VP for Bathurst in a bid to try to go back to the future to outrun them and it didn't work out in the end, but it was obviously a great piece of lateral thinking from Larry and Larry. Now, this race on this day back in 1996 was televised on channel 10. Of course, the 500 had been on SBS for a few years prior to that, but Davo was able to put together a deal with 10. Of course, this is before they became the broadcaster of V8 Supercars, as it was known from the following season onwards, so you had a cometary lineup from memory. Billy Woods was hosting, of course, Billy so well known with 10. Craig Denier was calling, Jeff Brabham was the expert. Yeah, it was an interesting lineup there and it was just so different to see V8 touring cars on channel 10. We were so used to them on channel 7 for so many years. When you take a look at the field at that 500 in 1996, 14 cars finished the race of the 22 that were starters. When you look back through two cars from the Holden Racing team, one car from Gwen Seton, one car from Tony Longhurst's team, one car from Larry Perkins team. Remember, he ran two in the championship for that year for the first time, but just the one at the Enduros, two shell cars, including the brand new Dick Johnson, John Bauer, mega car, as it was called. Remember that period when the magazines, namely Auto Action, just nicknamed all these body shells of things, the mega car, the super car, the hyper car, the super duper car, Evo 3, I think was the coat car. It was all happening. Johnson and Baufish 6, by the way, two laps down, the Dunlops were not the tires to have that day. Bridgestone 123, Yokohama 4, then Dunlop 5, 6, 7 and 8. Wayne Gardner, Neil Crompton, debut to brand new coat car, they finished 7th, they were also two laps down. The second shell car, Stephen Johnson, Charlie O'Brien at the wheel. Remember that Tommy Kendall, the American Trans Am driver, had a clashing race, so couldn't come out for that one. He was there, of course, for Bathurst. Top privateer. Can you remember? Trevor Ashby. And Steve Reed, the Landsvale Comet, or 9th overall, four laps down. And the first pack leader car home was Paul Romano, Andrew Medici, who we had Andrew on the pod earlier in the year, position 10. The Cyster car, Alan Jones, Alan Greis, crashing out the back straight with Greisie at the wheel. I think I had a punctured tie for a memory to put him off into the wall. Drama's for Larko and Cam McConville, that car had a drama at the very start. They were still running at the end. They only did 59 laps. They weren't classified. And one Gibson car there that weekend, Mark Scafesharing with Mark Noske and Gary Walden remember that network Q livery that debuted that weekend as well. Of course, John Klelland came out for Bathurst, but was unavailable for Sandout so many times that used to happen, didn't it? Where overseas drivers from British Touring Car Championship and other events, the calendar clash for Sandout, and they couldn't be here, but they were able to come and run at Bathurst. So interesting stuff. The other thing too with this race, which, by the way, did go the full 500 kilometer distance. The race time for Lounds and Murphy was actually a new race winning record for the 500K in Duro at Sandout. That's a record they held for 10 years until 2006, Jason Brightmark, winner bottom, knocked them off for that. But remember the podium presentation too, because not only did the hold on blokes clip the Tickford stickers off their cars, but on the podium, the hold on racing team blokes were throwing HSV flags everywhere over the top of the sponsored backdrop of Tickford, which upset plenty of people no end. I don't think there was a rule against it in any sub-brakes. I'm not sure anyone got penalized for it, but could you imagine Triple 8 drivers draping super cheap auto flags across REPCO logos? Oh my God, that would be on for young and old. That would be absolutely out of control in the modern era of commercial stuff, but back then there was a bit of gnashing of teeth from people, but there was no actual penalty as it were. So, love looking back at this stuff on RICO Rewind. Today, September the 8th, 1996, the Tickford 500 at Sandout and another chapter in Sandout Racing history. And of course, next weekend we do it again with this year, Sandout 500, the 60th anniversary edition. Hey, a big thank you too. RICO are huge supporters of VH sleuth. They are the official filtration partner of the REPCO Supercars Championship and they're with Motorsport Australia as well head to ricofilters.com.au to get the filter you need to get rid of the bad stuff, filter out the bad stuff, keep the good stuff. I think I've just wrote a new tagline for RICO, RICO Filters get on board, RICO Rewind will be back in upcoming weeks, lots to look back on with Sandouts, Baffists, Gold Coast history Adelaide as well, lots and lots of RICO Rewinds to come. Thanks for tuning in, really appreciate it, lots more podcasts on the VH sleuth podcast up coming. In the meantime, thanks for tuning in, I'll catch you next time. It's PC here, mate. I thought journalists always answer their phone. I'm just double checking your VH sleuth night at Baffists on the Thursday night, October 10th. I'm a shooting still 730 kickoff at the Baffists Memorial Entertainment Centre. Gave you records only need a toilet because I only get one person there so you better double check that. Anyway, it's going to be a hell of a night, buddy. You and I session for over an hour with the fans as well. Gosh, anything else you want, careful what you wish for, mate, it's going to be no-how bad. We'll have a few laughs, track a few jokes, you'll be boring, I'll be exciting. But that's okay, that's probably used to that. Anyway, oh good mate, look forward to it, lots of stories, lots of bullshit should be a rip of a night. Very good, speak soon.
