1962 Armstrong 500 - Race

Race

In a pointer towards the future the race results outright order was dominated by the new XL series Ford Falcon were three of the first four cars home, led by the factory supported car of defending race champions Harry Firth and Bob Jane. On the same lap as Firth/Jane was the Class A winning Studebaker of Fred Sutherland and Bill Graetz, who won the class by four laps, defeating the factory supported Ford Zephyr being driven by Geoff Russell and David Anderson, denying them of a third consecutive class victory. The performance of the big Studebaker was noteworthy in that while Larks continued to be entered into the race until 1968 this was as close as they would get to an outright victory.

In Class C one of the Renault Gordini's won despite being the victims of the new class structure with Rex Emmett, John Connolly and Brian Sampson racing to a four lap victory. Sampson in particular would become a fixture of the race in the next decade, which after demolishing the 1974 field only to blow their engine, would finally win the race outright in 1975 as Peter Brock's co-driver.

Jim McKeown, an emerging star in small bore touring cars, and George Reynolds took their Volkswagen to the Class D victory, beating the leading Mini by a lap. Reynolds too had an outright victory in store in just two years time in 1964.