Re: About Gruppe B and Sport Q's

[Dan Simoes <dans@ans.net>]

> 	Yesterday, I watched a videotape called "The Rally Supercars" (or
> 	something like that). It featured the Audi Sport Q, the Peugeot
> 	205 turbo, the Lancia 037 and Delta, and the Ford RS200.
> 	Interestingly, it wasn't clear
> 	from the video if Audi ever *won* any of the events -- how
> 	did they do?

We've talked about it on the list before.  They were beasts, all of
them.  The Audi no longer dominated the sport as it used it, in
particular the Lancia, Peugeot, and Ford were very close, if not
superior competitors.  The MG was also a hoot to watch.

I remember when the Ford piloted by Joaquim
Santos, a Portuguese driver went offroad into a crowd - that was
the first year a Portuguese driver won the Rallye de Portugal,
since virtually all the big teams withdrew out of respect for
the deceased.  Shortly thereafter it was decided that the cars
were uncontrollably fast, even for the experts, and Group B
was banned.  Group S as I think it was called, never saw the
light of day, as it would have had cars that were just as fast
but that did not need to be build in numbers, as was the case
with Group B and before (homologation I think it was called).

Rallying got pretty boring for a while thereafter, and I stopped
following the sport.  My impression is that today's cars are better
than the ones following the group B ban, but nowhere near as good
as the pre-B cars.

| Dan |

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Dan Simoes                                dans@ans.net
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