Production car era The first two races were open to production based sedans and, at six hours duration, were substantially longer than later iterations of the race. Both races were won by an
Alfa Romeo Giulia entered by
Alec Mildren Racing. In 1965, Sandown also hosted the single-event
Australian Touring Car Championship and hosted a regular
sprint round from 1970 onwards. In 1968, after a two-year hiatus, the event was revived as a three-hour race and took on a long time role as an unofficial "warm-up" event for what was then the
Bathurst 500. In common with the Bathurst race, it utilised technical regulations which limited cars to near production specifications, unlike the Australian Touring Car Championship which was for more highly modified
Group C Improved Production Touring Cars. Manufacturers took a stronger interest in the race in this period and the
Ford works team led by Canadian driver
Allan Moffat won the 1969 race in a
Ford XW Falcon GTHO Phase I, the first of six wins for Moffat. From 1970 the event's distance went from three hours to 250 miles, with
Colin Bond driving a
Holden LJ Torana GTR XU-1 to victory in 1971 and
John Goss winning the last
Series Production 500 in 1972 in a
Ford XY Falcon GTHO Phase III. ===
Group C Touring Car era=== The race was contested by the newly introduced
Group C Touring Car category from 1973, while from 1976 the event became known as the Sandown 400, held over 400 kilometres, despite only being scheduled for 338 kilometres in 1980 and 1982. The 2004, 2005 and 2006 races saw the debut championship event wins in the category for
Greg Ritter,
Yvan Muller and
Mark Winterbottom respectively. In 2007, Lowndes won the event for the fourth time, with
Jamie Whincup. Lowndes and Whincup would go on to become the first pairing to win the Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000 in the same year since Lowndes and Murphy in 1996. After a change of promoter of Sandown Raceway's motorsport activities, a changed V8 Supercars calendar resulted in the
500 kilometre event moving to the
Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit for the 2008 season, while Sandown reverted to hosting a sprint round, an event which became known as the
Sandown Challenge.
Australian Manufacturers' Championship The Sandown 500 was revived in 2011 as a round of the
Australian Manufacturers' Championship. It was split into two legs, run on Saturday and Sunday, with the overall placings based on the combined results of the two legs. The semi-factory supported Mitsubishi entry of Stuart Kostera and Ian Tulloch claimed the win in their
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.
Return of Supercars secured a one-two finish in the 2015 Sandown 500 won the fourth of his five Sandown 500s in
2018, driving with
Paul Dumbrell The Sandown 500 returned to the V8 Supercars calendar in 2012, replacing the Phillip Island 500 to again become the traditional lead-in race to the
Bathurst 1000. The format used at the Phillip Island 500 from 2008 to 2012 was brought to Sandown, with two short races on Saturday used to set the grid. Each co-driver has to drive one of the two races. From 2013, the event became part of the newly formed
Pirtek Enduro Cup within the Supercars season, along with the series' other two-driver races, the Bathurst 1000 and
Gold Coast 600.
Triple Eight Race Engineering dominated on the return to the track, with wins from 2012 to 2014. 2015 saw Winterbottom win the Sandown 500 for a second time, having first tasted success in 2006, leading home a
Prodrive Racing Australia one-two finish. From 2016 onwards, the newly-renamed Supercars Championship promoted the event as a "retro round", with several teams adopting one-off liveries for the event. The idea was loosely inspired by
NASCAR's
Bojangles' 500, that since 2015 has become a "retro round". The race itself saw
Garth Tander, driving with 2012 winner
Warren Luff, win his first Sandown 500 in mixed conditions, holding off
Shane van Gisbergen by under half a second. The race was shortened by 18 laps following a first lap crash involving
James Golding that damaged the turn 6 tyre barrier which needed to be repaired. The 2017 event was again shortened due to a lap one crash at turn 6, this time involving
Taz Douglas.
Cam Waters and
Richie Stanaway won the race, the first race victories of both of their Supercars careers. In 2018, Triple Eight Race Engineering dominated the event, scoring a clean sweep of the three podium positions, led by Whincup and
Paul Dumbrell who won their third Sandown 500 together. The 2019 event was scheduled in November, resulting in no lead-in endurance event to the Bathurst 1000, while the Saturday grid races became official championship points-paying races. It was also announced in the months leading up to the event that the Sandown 500 would not return in
2020, to be replaced by
The Bend 500 at
The Bend Motorsport Park (which eventually did not happen to the
COVID-19 pandemic. Sandown is scheduled to remain on the calendar with the return of the circuit's sprint event.
Post-COVID-19 Return After three years of a single two-driver endurance race on the calendar, including the return of the Sandown SuperSprint event in 2021 and 2022, the
2023 Supercars Championship re-instated the 500 in its traditional pre-Bathurst slot. The first two events of its return were won by Triple Eight Race Engineering - including Whincup's sixth event win in 2023. ==List of winners==