Both Michelle and Michael attended the inaugural Sandown Revival.  Michael was stationed in Race Control whilst Michelle competed in the Regularity class.

Michelle’s weekend was off to a rough start with Fernando failing scrutineering.  Along with several other competitors, Fernando failed scrutineering due to seatbelts that did not meet requirements.  At many hillclimb events, seatbelt requirements are lower as only one car is on track at a time; additionally, at historic circuit events many cars are exempted from seatbelt requirements due to their historic nature.  Unfortunately Sandown Revival was neither a hillclimb not an historic event, so seatbelts were mandatory and needed to meet stringent requirements.

Michelle and one of the other competitors made a quick trip to a motorsport supplier and both purchased new seatbelts before returning to the track to install them.  Michelle had her belts installed in time for the afternoon session, but having missed regularity practice she had to guess at a time to nominate.

Sandown Revival originally planned to run all regularity vehicles in a single 30 minute session.  Due to the speed differences between cars, this was changed to 2 x 15 minute sessions.  On Saturday the group split was set at 1:58 per lap which resulted in 8 cars in the class Michelle was in.  With a nominated time of 3:00 and lap times between 2:50.5 and 2:53.4, Michelle come in 7th place with one vehicle not finishing the session.

On the Sunday Michelle was able to get on track for the practice session where her fastest of 6 laps was set on lap 4 with a time of 2:25.1.

Michelle nominated a time of 2:23, the same time as nominated by Rachael Brown who has significant experience in regularity events in her Morris Special.  As Michelle is still learning about circuit racing she elected to follow Rachael for the entire session and they came in 4th and 5th with Rachael thinking she’d adjusted the engine advance a little too far for the afternoon.

With a view from race control, Michael thinks that Michelle and Rachael will provide some significant competition for each other at future events.

More than Track Action

As well as all the on-track action, Michelle wanted to show support for the Sandown Revival organisers and thank them for the event entry by joining the fashion show.  With a large break between the regularity practice session and the actual competitive event on the Sunday, Michelle went to the Members’ Reserve for the awards in the middle of the day.  Apparently this was even more nerve wracking than preparing to go circuit racing for the first time!

Having disclosed to the judges that she was primarily at the event to race, and with both judges being racers as well, Michelle feels that winning the Upcycled Fashion award may not have been fully deserved, but all of the regularity competitors said she was the rightful winner.

Results

For both the Saturday and Sunday, event competitors were given 50 points at the start of the session.  For every 0.5 seconds over time they lost 1 point and for every 0.5 seconds under time they lost 5 points.

2026 Sandown Revival - Lap Times Session 1

2026 Sandown Revival - Results Session 1

2026 Sandown Revival - Lap Times Session 2

2026 Sandown Revival - Results Session 2

Michelle and Fernando on the main straight

Michelle celebrating in the garage after her first circuit event

Michelle at the Historic Winton stand showing off her Fashion Awards Sash

Michelle with Rachael Brown, Mark Sycamnias (wearing Michelle’s fashion award sash) and their cars

Michelle in a Diaiso D962 owned by Pierce Reynolds