Hug the trees while waiting, take no mud home, that famous event sponsored by DayInsure

[forddeliveryboy]

It used to start in one of a number of attractive towns then over the following week make a high speed, low sleep tour around Britain's racecourses, stately home back gardens and unnatural and upland evergreen Forestry Commission gravel tracks through 20th century October weather, which often included snow before we commodotised and taxed ClimateChange^®.

 

Entire BBC schedules were re-arranged to allow a man with bleached hair to appear in what often resembled a WW2 fighter command Ops Room, Motorsport suggested, "a win has really become something to crow about, and probably worth more in terms of publicity than several other victories put together" in 1981. The RAC (sometimes Lombard, too) Rally was an event of huge excitement for me and more than made up for the clocks going back.

 

 

Telly addicts with no interest in motorsport recognised the place names revisited year after year, their interest in rallying unrivalled for its 'once-a-year-ness' with the exception of the Wimbledon fortnight. Knowsley, Chatsworth, Donington, Sutton, Trentham, Oulton, Pundershaw, Langdale, Wykeham, Dalby, Cropton, Grizedale, Dyfi, Coed y Brenin and Clocaenog were familiar names and countless teenagers were attempting to do the Scandinavian-flick. From the warmth in front of a gas fire, many felt Kielder Forest in a Quattro was where they'd prefer to be, without Brut 33. Carlsson, WaldegÃ¥rd, Mäkinen, Blomqist, Mikkola, Vatanen, Pond, Mouton, Clark, Kankkunen, Alen, Sainz, McRae and others usually responded to Tony Mason along the lines of "the stages are really slippery".

 

The end of the RAC seemed to coincide with the coming of Cool Britannia, to the extent that today if you asked people if they'd heard of the Dayinsure Rally they'd expect it to be a gathering of a group of people who had a thing about odd insurance. I wondered where the rally of old had gone, so had a look online to find it still existed, but mainly in Wales. I wonder if the Welsh government are off-setting some of their environmentalism with this massive consumption of fossil fuels in and around some of their most beautiful areas?

 

To amuse those of us with a sense of humour, they do assert that the event is not only Carbon Neutral but that marshals have had their battery torches confiscated and replaced with wind-up ones. Presumably to help offset the people who arrive by helicopter? They also state that they aim to minimise the use of energy and fuel.  http://www.walesrallygb.com/about/carbonneutral_r_event.php

 

Ok, so I'm a grumpy fella this afternoon who remembers the Eighties with rose-tinted edges, but what should we expect by 2040? 

[Junkman]

 

The prime cause of global warming is the build up of CO2 in the atmosphere. Every person and organisation produces CO2 - and the amount is known as a 'carbon footprint'. Because we all produce CO2, it's the responsibility of everyone to try to reduce the amount they produce to help slow global warming. Major sources of CO2 emissions include energy used in the home and that produced by driving and flying.

 

Funnily enough, not a single statement in this paragraph is true, except this one: Every person and organisation produces CO2.

The rest is pure fiction.

[dollywobbler]

The fact that I live barely a mile away from one of the stages of Wales Rally GB and can't be arsed to have anything to do with it tells you all you need to know really. I used to love the WRC, even in more recent years. Then, the telly audiences started dwindling and it became impossible to watch. It has been lacking character drivers too.

[panhard65]

I am with you on this back in the late 80's early 90's I used to go every year to the "RAC" even when it became the Network Q rally we still went. It used to be great with the mickey mouse stages on Sunday where the normal spectators went leaving the forests for those of us mad enough to want to kip in the back of a Maestro van in freezing temperatures. Colin Mcrae in a Subaru was worth it though. You could hear him coming a mile off as he was always flat out. Then it would be off to try and catch the leaders again somewhere else or staying until the end to cheer the last car through. (A pink Renault 4 one year) It all went wrong when Wales started to sponsor it and it became a mild ride around the Welsh countyside. No more 1000 mile trek up to the borders then the lakes and back to Wales, so I haven't been for years. It was on last weekend and I was silly enough to watch a bit that was on channel 5. It was crap the top 10 cars went through and that was it winner announced lets all go home. They charged 20 quid a ticket for it as well so you could stand in a sheep pen a mile away from the action. This really should of been in the grumpy thread as it pisses me off everytime I think about how good it was and the crap we have now.

[forddeliveryboy]

I see one entrant was grumpy even in 1986 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=LFmO_8KGAHA#t=715

 

Some fine footage of a Manta overtaking a 343 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=LFmO_8KGAHA#t=1098

 

Cambelt failure on the M6 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=LFmO_8KGAHA#t=1963

 

57 year old entrant in £250 car - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=LFmO_8KGAHA#t=2156

[Pillock]

It's not the same as the days when people were throwing snowballs at Tony Mason. Amusing that driver in the clip is complaining it's "not like rallying of old" which just goes to show people will always moan about how their time is worse than times past. He's be spinning in his grave if he could see it now. Assuming he's dead. But that looks like the late 19th century with her hairdo so he probably is.

 

I think the problem now is it's all about the technology, looking for the maximum power and loopholes and doing a million quid rebuild every time you turn the indicator on. It's got massive backing from a few major players and that's it. 

 

I've been to a few local events from the Dukeries club, which tends to be a whole bunch of older cars (everything from Subarus that would have been on the RAC stages a few years ago, to classics like RS Escorts and Sunbeams) getting bodged together between stages. My mate used to run a Nova, swapped to an Impreza for a bit but now has a Cit C2. Much better to watch, you can take your flask and pick out a favourite spot - walk up the circuit between cars and pick gravel out your teeth. The quick stuff is still quick but there seems to be more skill involved. Also more interesting metal - just looking for a picture, there was an E30, Porsche boxter, Mantas, Escorts, an MGB, Rover 200s, Novas, Corsas, a bloody Micra, Skoda Felicia...

 

[andy18s]

You should take a look for the Slowly Sideways and Rally History sites

They were running the demonstration runs through Chumley for all the older Group B and later stuff

No link but a few stolen pics are OK I guess....

[Tamworthbay]

Funnily enough, not a single statement in this paragraph is true, except this one: Every person and organisation produces CO2.

The rest is pure fiction.

Yup, no global warming in your house.

[RoadworkUK]

I've got "Duel" by Propaganda in my head now.

[DSdriver]

In the early 70s a mate of mine used to do  the RAC rally in an Alfa with sponsorship from Alitalia and St Bruno (the pipe tobacco company) Whenever they stopped the car he had to put a pipe in his mouth despite the fact that he didn't smoke.

He was able to tell which stages the press photos were taken by which bits of the car he had ripped off on gateposts and trees.

[New POD]

Ah the 24 hours that me and 4 other engineering students, rented a sierra and drove from Coventry to Kielder, and stood in 8 inches of snow, for hours, watching our heros go past, with me refusing to move until I'd seen rear engineed Skoda(s) go by. Followed by a quick dash to GriesDale forest, to see the sun rise over mk2 escorts and RS200's and the like. Followed by a trip to Nottingham for the finish. Great days. I wonder what them lads are doing now. 1985 it was.

[dollywobbler]

I think the problem now is it's all about the technology, looking for the maximum power and loopholes and doing a million quid rebuild every time you turn the indicator on. It's got massive backing from a few major players and that's it. 

 

 

Er, you think the 1980s wasn't about maximum power, loopholes and million quid rebuilds? Don't forget, Lancia was trying to make a rally car that was turbocharged AND supercharged. A 205 T16 wasn't exactly low cost motoring either.

 

I was actually a bit young for the Group B lunacy, but enjoyed the Group A era very much. But BTCC seemed much better back in the 1990s too, before they all started bolting spoilers on.

[forddeliveryboy]

Funnily enough, not a single statement in this paragraph is true, except this one: Every person and organisation produces CO2.

The rest is pure fiction.

 

 

Yup, no global warming in your house.

 

 

This whole climate change thing is beset with untruths and half-truths which so many people fall for. I don't think either the deniers or the other side have it right.

 

Western governments are taxing carbon and lecturing developing nations on the evils of fossil fuel, yet we're not reducing our consumption of them at all or showing any signs of moving towards a 90%+ renewables energy situation. We've sent almost all our pollution offshore (China mainly, where its effects are far worse) and are in complete denial as successive governments aim for more and more consumption and more taxation. Which hurts the poor the most, since it's regressive. 

 

What nobody talks about is the planet's Carbon Cycle, and how small the quantities Man is responsible for are (about +10 Gigatons/year) compared with photosynthesis (-120Gt),  microbe decomposition and respiration (+60) and plant respiration (+60). 

 

The reality is that fossil fuels will be replaced by renewables because they're cheaper, non-polluting and ever-lasting. The benefits will be reduced pollution, lower energy costs and increased national security (beautifully offset if we go ahead with mass Nuclear programs.)  Man's use of the land is equally/more important than fossil fuel burning, as the numbers show. How we're treating the land today is a far, far worse crime than burning oil, I'd say. 

 

Reading about the WalesRallyGB use of wind-up torches for the marshals and their Carbon Neutral status both amused and saddened me. It's sad to see how a once great event has been reduced to the corporatism it appears now to be. 

 

 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

1985 Hawick. This was my company car and 4 of us lived in it for the week, now I can't even be arsed to look it up on line .

I remember that snowy night in Kielder and the cheers for Tony Pond in the Metro, the mass snowball fights across the track. The noise of an approaching Quattro across a mountainside, getting almost flattened by a fucking great stag when I got out of the car to have a piss at dawn. Buying self heating cans of stew off a bloke in a Mk2 RS2000 in Grizedale. Meeting Henri Toivenen at a 3 am service in Kielder, racing other spectators for every mile across Wales. Not leaving a stage until the orange privateer Opel Monza had gone through.

Skodas you say- I only took about 8 pictures this is one of em.

I went every year from 85 until 93 I can rember every car we took, I used to plan a couple of months ahead.

86. 78 2.8 GL Granada estate.

87. 85 1.6 L Cavalier.

88. 87 1.6 GL Sierra ( with Colway rally tyres)

89. 89 Rover 214 SLi. ( demo)

90. 89 2.0 Cdi Carlton

91. 90 Saab CD

92. 91 3.0 24v 605 ( demo)

93 89 2.0 GL Granada

The best - the Saab.

The most competitive? The 214 and 605- flat out over all roads- it didn't matter if I broke them.

Although they were all company cars apart from the mk2 Granny which was Mrs N's daily driver at the time.

[carlo]

I've got "Duel" by Propaganda in my head now.

 

I've got Susanne Freytag in my head now.

[PhillipM]

Screw the rallying, come watch Safari's. It's like a mix between your mum's freelander with a rollcage up to bespoke group B-alike cars but on mud with amateur drivers, much funnier

[drum]

Michelle Mouton...oh yes.

[drum]

Just had a google.

 

She's 65 now!

[Skizzer]

In my part of the world and up Rhayader way, Wales Rally GB is still known dismissively as the RAC - Rally Around Cardiff.

[Bren]

image.jpeg

1985 Hawick. This was my company car and 4 of us lived in it for the week, now I can't even be arsed to look it up on line .

I remember that snowy night in Kielder and the cheers for Tony Pond in the Metro, the mass snowball fights across the track. The noise of an approaching Quattro across a mountainside, getting almost flattened by a fucking great stag when I got out of the car to have a piss at dawn. Buying self heating cans of stew off a bloke in a Mk2 RS2000 in Grizedale. Meeting Henri Toivenen at a 3 am service in Kielder, racing other spectators for every mile across Wales. Not leaving a stage until the orange privateer Opel Monza had gone through.

image.jpeg

Skodas you say- I only took about 8 pictures this is one of em.

I went every year from 85 until 93 I can rember every car we took, I used to plan a couple of months ahead.

86. 78 2.8 GL Granada estate.

87. 85 1.6 L Cavalier.

88. 87 1.6 GL Sierra ( with Colway rally tyres)

89. 89 Rover 214 SLi. ( demo)

90. 89 2.0 Cdi Carlton

91. 90 Saab CD

92. 91 3.0 24v 605 ( demo)

93 89 2.0 GL Granada

The best - the Saab.

The most competitive? The 214 and 605- flat out over all roads- it didn't matter if I broke them.

Although they were all company cars apart from the mk2 Granny which was Mrs N's daily driver at the time.

Sure the skoda in the pic was same as matchbox model.

 

Sure it came to Widnes in the 80's.

[Bren]

I mean the rally - there were many mantas' and mk 2 escorts.

[M'coli]

Michelle Mouton...oh yes.

Her co-driver, Fabrizia Pons, was lovely too:

[M'coli]

That video of the 1986 event is fantastic - can you imagine the legal/reputational consequences of a film crew interviewing a driver on a motorway nowadays? 1986 - not a problem...  "We seem to have developed an oil leak..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=LFmO_8KGAHA#t=1935

[M'coli]

My first stage as a spectator was Pundershaw 93(edit: in the dark, too), it took us 3 hours throught the snow to get out of the stage; my last ever was Blenhiem Park in 99 as a marshall.

 

It lost the romance with the loss of the overnight stages: going to bed because some of us had school/work the next day knowing that Killer Kielder would shake things up gave a great sense of anticipation; knowing that the order hadn't changed overnight wasn't exciting.

[Vin]

I went to the sunday special stage for a couple of years at Clumber Park. 1990 was the last. My Dad's SD1 being overtaken by the competitors heading North up the A1 was quite cool for a teenager...

 

I also went one night during the week, when they had a special stage around Scunthorpe steelworks...

[Dead_E23]

One year ('92, iirc), I helped a friend do stage radio for the rally as it passed through Wales.  

 

I acted as chauffeur, in a worn out 110 hardtop with 6" of play in the steering and gearbox input shaft splines that were absolutely on their last legs, requiring the gentlest gear changes possible to avoid shearing the last bits off the shaft.  To find our positions, we had to drive through the stage in pitch darkness the night before and camp in temperatures as low as -10C (which isn't as bad as it sounds, as long as your tent is small). We even had GPS, which was very niche at the time.

 

As with most events involving volunteer 'officials', the support organisation was full of puffed up little men who strutted about proudly carrying clipboards and generally making twats of themselves.   At Pantperthog, we almost caused one of them to have a brainstorm because we insisted on using the callsign 'Pant start' (or wherever we were) instead of 'PAN start', and kept it up through the whole event despite him roaring at us over the radio every time.

[Dave_Q]

Don't know when exactly, around 95-96 possibly, 13 year old me went with a friend and his dad to see some rallying, the special stages at Silverstone and Donington.

 

I particularly remember the dash up the M1 to get to Donington, a certain Colin McRae came flying past us in his Impreza.

 

My friends dad, normally the most giffertastic of drivers, made a great effort to catch up in his then nearly new Rover R8 218SD, getting close to 100mph before giving up.

 

We did catch up with McRae shortly after - I believe they were timed between stages to make sure they didn't break the speed limit so he had to disengage the warp drive to being his average speed down.

[sheffcortinacentre]

Went twice in the mid 80s to Chatsworth stage in a mk2 escort 1300 pop.

Was gutted Tony pod had crashed the SD1 earlier.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

Rallying is massive in Ireland, both north and south, plenty of grass roots stuff. Plus we have the NW200 and other road races so we do alright. Rallying and road racing appeal to our backwards rural ways....

 

https://youtu.be/Vy8w915Z1Wc

 

Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk

[forddeliveryboy]

Totally agree about the loss of night stages, a bit of magic can make an event like this.