Rallying in the 1980s: TV Heads-up!

[KruJoe]

Only an hour away I know, if you miss it, find it on BBC iplayer.

 

9pm tonight (Sunday), BBC4 "Madness on Wheels: Rallying's Craziest Years".

Sounds like a whole steaming heap of Group B fun. Enjoy.

[M'coli]

I see it's repeated later in the week too if you want to catch the Falklands program on BBC2; why does the Beeb always put 2 documentaries on different channels at the same time?

[pocket.calculator]

TV heaven, thanks for the tip. BBC4 is the best channel out there.

[dollywobbler]

One to wait for on i-Player. Sounds a lot better than trying to find decent Group B footage on YouTube!

[Negative Creep]

What always amazes me is that there wasn't a fatal crash sooner. With spectators that close it was only a matter of time

[CreepingJesus]

What always amazes me is that there wasn't a fatal crash sooner. With spectators that close it was only a matter of time

 

Was only ever a matter of time before one of those monsters killed crews and/or spectators. Another Le Mans '55 was always possible. Still the best period of rallying ever, and who knows what the cancelled Group S would've followed it with.

[KruJoe]

+1 on that gents.

 

... a whole steaming heap of Group B fun.

 

I was wrong about that, it wasn't a barrel of laughs that's for sure, 'twas the sombre story of the rise and fall of an important episode in motorsport history.

They were truly epic machines though, without doubt.

[dollywobbler]

Well, you couldn't have the good times without the bad. So many lives lost - drivers and spectators. Something had to give!

[autofive]

watching it on i player now

[dollywobbler]

Just caught up with this. It boggles the mind that more people were not killed really. Would be nice if they'd do a longer series of these things, showing more non-fatal crashing.

 

Worryingly, the first time I saw that footage of the RS200 spearing into the crowd in Portugal was in a French motor museum. You know, where any passing children could see it. I felt quite queasy knowing that I'd just watched several people get killed. Kind of makes you see that Health and Safety perhaps has a point...

[wackywacerwill]

baaa

 

Watching it now on player.

[dollywobbler]

Did no-one get killed because Brits are sensible or was it just luck? Corsica took out two great rally drivers, but I don't recall any spectators dying. It was absolute insanity to have rules about crowd control and then not enforce them. Because of tragedies like that, there followed very sensible advice about not standing where a car was likely to come hooning off the road - or standing IN the actual road. Doesn't take a genius to realise the stupidity of standing in the path of a flying projectile, yet people will do stupid things - especially once mob rule kicks in. You can always trust humans to do stupid things. Your talk of gas fires - how many of us have put our hands into a flame to see how hot it is? (you learn pretty quickly at school that this is a trick best done on a bunsen burner while the flame is yellow and relatively cool. You have to try it though!)

[retrogeezer]

Plenty of modern day videos on youtube of twats playing chicken with trains.....if you are mad enough to stand in the road in front of a car doing 100mph plus you have to expect to get hurt.

 

They said on that programme that a mother and her young child were killed instantly.....why the fook would you endanger your kids life like that?? The mind boggles at the mentality of some people.

[Ross_K]

"Still Too Fast To Race" is a much better Group B documentary...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUCtYCYd1u8

[wackywacerwill]

"Still Too Fast To Race" is a much better Group B documentary...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUCtYCYd1u8

 

Here here. The sound of that Audi in the intro makes me hard.

[M'coli]

Tayne has a point - and it's a particularly Iberian point. No-one other than the occupants died in the Corsican accident because of the isolated location, but there was an inevitability about an accident in Portugal having that effect on that number of spectators as therre was a culture of machismo that encouraged getting close to the cars. I haven't watched all of it, but did it mention a previous stage or rally when a car arrived at service and the mechanics removed a finger from the bodywork?

The same sort of thing happened during practice for the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix in Montjuïc Park, where elements of the crowd attempted to see who could get close to and touch the F1 cars, in particular at the hairpin.

 

Then there's the old maxim from the TT races that can be applied here too - the throttle goes both ways. Motorsport is dangerous, and even with the advances in safety since group B, unfortunately people still die due to accidents.

 

 

 

As an aside, I found it very annoying that some of the engine sounds didn't match the cars on screen...

[dollywobbler]

The finger was mentioned in the 'Duke' film, but not the Beeb one. Mind you, the Beeb one did mention Porsche's 939 rally machine - which is odd as that doesn't exist (959 presumably).

 

I see where you're coming from and rallying certainly lacks the bonkers drama of Group B, even though the cars are faster today. They just don't look like they're hanging around somewhere slightly beyond the levels of control these days. Very, very quick, but not exciting. A bit like a hot Audi I guess. The Germans could take the Big Bang itself and turn it into more of a large, gentle awakening.

 

It is definitely annoying when incorrect sound tracks are laid over visuals. "S'funny, I don't remember the Peugeot 205 T16 having a five-cylinder engine..."

[Betaphile]

To be fair on the crowd control thing, it wasn't just Group B, the Portuguese have always been mental. There's a story from circa 1998-ish told by Ford mechanics, of finding half a finger lodged in the rear wing of Kankkunen's Escort WRC after a Portuguese stage...