One of the single greatest things about this round is sitting around and listening to the inspirations behind the latest paint schemes inspired from years gone by. 

Perhaps it's the Tru-Blu Dick Johnson livery that won the ATCC title in ‘81 and ‘82. It might be the Castrol Perkins Racing Cars and their iconic schemes that continued on through into the times where I started watching car racing and loved to hate Russell Ingall.

One of the coolest things about Sim Racing now is that we have enough years that we can start to put together our own legacy of liveries. This can only happen with the support of long standing drivers and teams within our sport, and as the years continue to tick by, more of those legacies continue to be built.

Evolution Racing Team will be running throwback paints to their earliest generations of cars. One of their earlier schemes featured the first approved “Red Bull” logo in sim racing on board the “Maverick” scheme. Two of the ERT driver pairings will be showcasing this livery, with the Ethan Grigg-Gault and Brad Ryan driven #7, as well as that of Ian Ford and Daniel Hall’s #115 machine.

Beau Albert has been there and done it all. Australia’s only multiple iRacing Pro Licence holder got his start with ERT. Since then, he’s taken on the world before returning to where it all began. His Sandown scheme will pay homage to where he first joined the team as one of its “Hornets” drivers in the yellow and black livery. Jake Blackhall will return to the highest echelons of supercars racing to

When you look up and down the grid, there will be some drivers moving towards the ends of their careers and thinking about the legacy they leave, whilst others drive forwards looking to forge their own. 

Last year

Two-Thirds of the championship behind us, the Sandown 500 marks the midpoint of the enduro cup, and the start of the run home for the championship contenders.

161 laps, an iconic venue, and the challenge of driver swaps always earmark this one on the calendar as a race that’s harder to win than most.

Last year James Scott and Shane Van Gisbergen would be one of the faster pairings, only to make contact with other cars several times and end up with penalties that would ruin any chance of an outright victory.

The call that won the race last year was the alternate strategy of Luke Rosella and Harley Haber to put them in position to benefit from a late race caution for fresh tires on Lap 129. They had to get aggressive from here, but they leveraged the tires and reasonable pace they had all day long to be in position when it mattered.

This year

Enduro cup means you have to think about co-drivers, getting their time out of the way at the right time, minimum laps, maximum laps and fatigue management. The last hour of the race from last year exploded into life, incidents and action and it’ll happen again, maybe just not to the same level.

The strategy is such a crucial element of this race. You must clear a minimum of 54 laps per driver, with a maximum consecutive lap count of 65 laps. That makes the target lap for your final driver swap no earlier than lap 97. The big key with this one is if your co-driver starts, you are looking to swap them out at the end of the first stint, to set them up to run to 97. If your main driver starts, their target lap is 43 for their first stint. Fuel range is somewhere around 44-47 depending on saving, so keep your eyes on the guys who do opt for some saving at some point.

Critically with this all in mind, 65 laps is about one and a half stints. This leaves us with 2 awkward half stints to be done for a primary and co driver at some point in the race. If you have a driver pairing with extremely similar or quick pace this opens your options right up to running closer to a 50/50 split, perhaps even doing driver swaps every stint to get yourself completely away from the consecutive lap numbers.

Sandown from a racing perspective is all about pulling the trigger on a move and getting it done quickly. Best overtaking spots are Turn 1 and Turn 9. Both of these opportunities are followed by corners back in the other direction, so getting down the inside is followed by being on the outside for the next turn.

Ultimately passing takes a speed advantage, or a mistake to set the move up. Keep your eyes on this as the race progresses and drivers become less patient.

Sandown is also a place loved by the drivers, everyone has logged a lot more laps than the bulk of the other tracks on iRacing. Combine this with a short lap, qualifying is set to be the closest of the year.

Experienced heads tend to prevail at these races, so where does my next round of predictions (or commentator’s curses) go?

Expect the order to be shuffled a bit for Sandown too. Enduro’s create this situation with shuffled fields. Jobe Stewart was on for a podium before an incident very late in the race trying to take 2nd last year. Dylan O’Shea took 2nd on track, before a post-race penalty for a Safety Car Procedure breach moved him down the standings. Keep your eyes for odd names to pop to the surface with odd strategies.

The Championship

This battle isn’t going away. Dylan Rudd finally gets the bulk amount of points he needed to keep himself in contention to win the title. Time is now running out to run back down his 94 point lead, but the chasing pack have already done it once!

Andrew Gilliam’s win brings him back into mathematical contention, but requires a very strong finish to keep his hopes alive.

260 Points off the lead is Madison Down now, and his race to the title required podiums at both of last year’s enduro’s. He’s going to need that, and pace to the end of the season to be a remote hope, but it's not done yet and he will fight to the last lap. Of that I have absolutely no doubt.

Qualifying all kicks off from 7pm Friday 30th August when we find out who will drive off into the sunset and potentially divine their own legacy.