GROUP B RALLY - WHY EVEN THE DRIVERS WERE SCARED OF THE CARS

@Spartanm333 11 months ago

Thanks for the effort in putting this retrospective together. As a person who was there through the 80s actively spectating and following the sport, I wouldn't agree that many top drivers of the time were 'scared' of the cars - if you have ever followed Ari Vatenan's career the man was a legend, balls of steel in a rear wheel drive car like the Ford Escort Mk2 and Open Manta - mud, rain, snow and superhuman on dry tarmac. His co-drivers were sometimes scared, offering a prayer during the stage when things got hairy... like on the Isle of man when he clipped a gate post at +100MPH with a significant drop to the side of the road. Tony Pond also who was the development driver for Austin Rover during the design and testing of the 6R4 - such power in a small, light frame - it was a struggle to get down on the road even with 4-wheel drive and not many managed to run a 6R4 on full boost in a national event except Tony Pond... but I would not have said he was scared of the car. Respectful of it would be a better word. Tony Pond had previously driven the V8 RWD Rover Vitesse - a car I drove at pace (for a living) with around 300 BHP through the rear wheels (in my case), it was a handful in bad wether conditions - spinning its wheels in 3rd gear if you were not careful coming out of a fast bend with a little camber. I could mention others - Jimmy McCrae (also a Manta / 6R4 driver) and his son Colin McCrae - never displayed any fear that I witnessed. I think the truth was that many of the top seeds were increasingly concerned about bad spectator behaviour, particularly in the Southern European countries - Italy, Spain, Crete, Greece where there was virtually no crowd control or safety zones / barriers defined such as the exit to a fast bend. It was an accident waiting to happen and as you stated, in some cases was seen as a badge of honour by the reckless few who tried to touch the cars (INSANE MANIACS would be a good description for them, not motorsport fans). This did NOT happen in England, Ireland, Scotland, Finland by and large where there was more often than not experienced marshalling from local rally and hill climb clubs and a higher degree of stage planning and access restrictions - such as tricky parts of the Welsh Forest on the RAC - fans were not allowed / could not get to these. In addition, it's fair to say that there were growing concerns from the drivers (and marshalls / motoring journalists) in 1985 concerning the Group B car designs - not so much about the BHP of the engines as the fact that the Peugeot and Lancia S4 (others followed) were practically kit cars - a light sub frame, big turbo (lots of heat / glowing manifolds), fibre glass body and a largely unprotected fuel tank - basically a bomb travelling at extreme speeds on poor surfaces and in poor conditions. This is what they were upset about and the late Henri Toivonen and his co driver Sergio Cresto's manor of death in 1986 finally provided the evidence - the car exploded and was consumed by an intense fire in seconds... there was nothing resembling a vehicle left of it. Which is not to disrespect the killed and injured spectators on various rally's of the period, although as I have suggested, I believe that this was a planning, safety and marshalling issue on behalf of the event organisers and host country... not the car or drivers fault. And we know this is true because the Group B cars lived on for a decade afterwards in hill climbs, local and national open events - many 6R4s and RS200's were run in the United Kingdom and Ireland after 1986, largely without spectator incident.