Sandown 500

svg's strong season didn't finish so strongly in nascar at homestead for the final run uh didn't have a great qualifying didn't have a great finish finish p34 and kyle larson is your new nascar champion for 2026 the third time larson has won that and here's the sad part we're not going to potentially see svg around home in christmas because guess what he has to wait for his green card and that's what's going on it's as simple as that At home in Repco Supercars, a bumper weekend for Matt Payne.

Huge weekend, winning the Sandown 500 run, punching his ticket for the finals in Adelaide in a couple of weeks.

Who's he up against? Brodie Kostecki, Chas Mossett, will he defend? And Brock Feeney.

Hmm.

lots going on but cannot wait for that one.

Also at Sandown at the weekend Ben Stewart was in line to win that GR Cup championship just didn't get the job done finished second here's his thoughts.

Well that wraps up the final race of 2026 it's pretty bittersweet we really had a challenging day today I probably went for a move that I really shouldn't have in race two today and yeah kind of put it off track and really hurt our chances of fighting for the championship win today so disappointed to not take the big prize but you know still pretty proud of the year that we've put together we had a pretty good race in that last race recovering from 14th to 6th we had a lot of good pace but Yeah, it is what it is.

That's motorsport.

And when we talk about cool cars, supercars down under in Australia, always cool, always raucous, always thrilling.

The Sandown 500 at the weekend and Saturday's opening race sparked immediate drama, of course it did, when Brodie Kostecki won an epic, epic battle with Will Brown in so doing, punching his ticket directly into the Adelaide Grand Final.

On Sunday, Matty Payne completed a commanding Sandown weekend by holding off a late charge from Anton De Pasquale to claim race 34 by just seven tenths of a second while De Pasquale's agonising runner-up finish locked him out of Well, contention.

Chas Mostert survived to join Payne and Kostecki and Brock Feeney in the final four.

Okay, everyone, we're here for episode number 60 of the Lucky Dogs pod.

And this week it is the Sandown 500 recap.

And what a weekend it was.

The final series has turned it on again.

It's just.

It doesn't interest me as much as Sandown.

Like you say, Sandown 500, the second last round of the year for the pre-final or whatever.

You're like, yeah, that sounds fun.

was close no no no 260 down the back straight of uh sandown but it's more like you're not used to the ground coming past you so quickly in a car but it's more the acceleration and the late braking as anyone would attest like and they don't exactly go around the curbs either like they mount everything and your head and your neck's like smashing around and my head's smashing into the roll bar at one stage a lot there's only two laps and i was like I just felt the onset of fatigue after two laps, right? Yeah, right.

And they go around Sandown, the Sandown 500.

It's like 160-odd laps.

I'm like, how do you do 160-odd laps at that intensity? It would be insane.

It is a great finals venue in terms of how it races and all that sort of stuff.

So we're looking at a very different final series this time in a year, but it was a, I think it was a good swan song for Sandown as you know, for its final time as a semifinals venue.

And, um, and there's kind of, um, I mean, the August slot for next year is a little concerning weather-wise, but it does feel like it could be a great place to wrap up the Sprint Cup as well.

Although, there's still a lot of people out there that really wish we were going to have a proper Sandown 500 two-driver race next year.

Yeah,

especially a

And yeah, as you say, condolences to the family.

And Gutfield might be a way off for our next one, but we'll cover off on that soon as well.

And I think there's going to be a few nervous and anxious officials who at Cricket Australia, waiting to read this book when it's released tomorrow.

Matt Payne, he survived a scare to win the Sandown 500, so he's into the grand final of the supercars in Adelaide.

Wallabies, do we need to talk about them? Embarrassing.

45-22 loss to England at Twickenham.