The Victorian Historics Racing Register (VHRR) successfully held its Historic Sandown on the weekend with more than 200 entries a part of the annual event.
 
Taking place at Sandown Raceway, the 200 plus competitors were spread across 12 fields and got three official sessions in the battle for round honours in their respective categories.
 
Amongst the categories were open wheel classics like Formula 5000, Formula Ford and Formula Vees, while regular categories such as Historic Touring Cars, HQ Holdens and Groups J, K, L, M, S, N and P were all involved.
 
The event also accommodated those individuals who just wanted to cut laps of the circuit in their classic vehicles, as opposed to race, with a regularity and the VHRR Classic Sprint.
 
In regard to results, there was a good mixture of drivers who dominated their respective categories and classes where there were multiple winners and very little separating the outright honours.
 
One of those incredibly close outcomes came in the HQ Holdens, where there were three different winners in Gavin Ross, Andrew Williams and Rod Raatjes.
 
Raatjes was the only one of the three to claim two podiums in addition to his race win, however Williams’ victory came in the longest race, while Ross’s top two results in the opening two races were undone with a seventh place in race three.


Like the HQ Holdens, there was very little separating the top two contenders in the MG And Invited British Cars with Philip Chester’s two wins over Vincenzo Gucciardo sole win proving the difference between the two.
 
Clean sweeps were more prominent in the open wheel categories with one driver dominating the field in both Formula 5000 and Formula Ford categories.
 
Often a favourite at the Historic Sandown, the F5000 once again proved a hit with the fans despite the smaller than usual entry list, as Paul Zazryn nabbed a convincing three wins from three races.
 
Jonathan Miles on the other hand, had a further 26 drivers across three different classes to contend with and was able to pick up his three wins cleanly, although Richard Davison provided him with a decent challenge for much of the weekend.


The race meeting’s biggest field was in the Regularity, which saw plenty of mixed results as a mixture of competitors enjoyed success in each of three sessions.
 
However, when it came down to the overall results and the point score, it was Holden EH pilot Geoff Vernon who accumulated the most points over the weekend, with his 962-point tally trumping the next highest scorer in Louise Raper, who accumulated 943 points.
 
In the other major non-race category, the VHRR Classic Sprint, Michael Roddy steered his Jaguar TWR XJS to the fastest time in two of three sessions – his time of 1:22.5259 in the second sessions proving the outright fastest time.
 
Click here to view all results from the weekend.
 
Following on from the smooth running of the 2021 Historic Sandown, Deputy Clerk of Course Michael Herlihy was proud of the event’s success.
 
“It was a fantastic weekend and it was just so nice to be back doing what we love,” Herlihy said. 
 
“The feedback we got from competitors and officials was overwhelming. People were so happy with how the event went and were highly grateful with us running it, it was just really special.
 
“We were also happy to see a big crowd of spectators in attendance, which was great. We were not sure if we would have a huge turnout but were pleasantly surprised when Red Hill seemed packed all weekend.
 
“I must say – one of the highlights of the weekend was seeing how excited all the officials were in being back at a race meeting and in the company of their peers. It was just fantastic.”