walter rohrl on michele mouton/henri toivinen/mickey shoemaker

[David Eaton <David.Eaton@COMPUTERLAND.CO.NZ>]

i forgot also a conversation walter and i had about michele mouton. 
 according to walter (and he should know), michele was a fantastic 
driver but always went to pieces when head-to-head with him.  by way 
of example, he talked of going into the last special stage of the 
sardina rally in '83 (i think) with michele 4 minutes up in the 
quattro to his opel.  he was on a charge and she knew it and proceeded 
to go to pieces on the last stage losing 3 minutes to him.  walter is 
still an intensely competitive man and clearly relishes his reputation 
as being the best of the group 'b' era.  as he said "you only ever 
compete against your teammates, they are the only ones who have the 
same equipment and the know what is really going on".

i also talked to him about henri toivonen and walter had a somewhat 
surprising view.  he considered him a very fast driver, but flawed in 
his analysis of risk.  according to walter, henri took too many risks 
in the desire to be the fastest.  walter considered that that was what 
cost him his life.  btw he confirmed the fact that henri was on cold 
medication the day that he was killed.

on the infamous mickey shoemaker incident in the this years jerez gp, 
walter thought that mickey, while clearly by far the best driver in 
the world, was also clearly at fault.  he said "micheal has always 
been trickey, even when he was in carts".

talking about the day with walter rohrl reminded me of another 
ur-quattro which turned up during the driving course.  there were only 
2 amongst the a4's (most), a8 (2) and rs2 (1) and porker 993 (1).

this was an immaculate 1984 model with the cibie lights, flat grill 
(!) and a number plate of "w rohrl".  The owner got walter's signature 
for his ownership papers!

dave
'95 rs2
'90 ur-q