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The Car That Changed Rally Racing Forever

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Re: The Car That Changed Rally Racing Forever

#21

Post by quickdraw46 »

exDM69 wrote: post #20
Nr7 wrote: post #8

It was amazing what the drivers did with these Group B monsters in the mid 80s, considering how different of a sport rallying was back then. The cars were at best several hundreds of horsepowers more powerful than current wrc cars, with much inferior handling. Most cars, if any, didn't even have power steering back then. Also the races were much longer taking place over about 5 days compared to the 3 day events nowad…

These cars were crazy difficult to drive, they had a "locked" four wheel drive system that is similar to an agricultural tractor so you have to slide the car around slow corners or the engine stalls (spectacular and noisy, but not really fast). They had an unsynchronized H-shifter gearbox that requires double declutching on downshifts and careful power application given the huge turbo boost. The driver has to be able…

I thought Senna was gifted when I saw that video of him driving the NSX. But this is something else!

Re: The Car That Changed Rally Racing Forever

#22

Post by hengheng »

Yhippa wrote: post #2

Thank goodness it did. The things drivers can do with rally cars is amazing. By far my favorite sport to watch. I'm sad that it didn't really catch on in the USA. The format is unlike anything that would sell commercially here.

In the days of YouTube celebs and Twitch, I can see a new future for rally spectating.

Re: The Car That Changed Rally Racing Forever

#23

Post by tobltobs »

Some of the success of the Quadro should be attributed to the driver Walter Röhrl (and of course his copilot). Before he changed to the Audi Team, he did win lots of rallyes with an Opel Ascona 400, which was not exactly overpowered compared to the other rallye cars of this time.

Re: The Car That Changed Rally Racing Forever

#24

Post by ifcho »

Yhippa wrote: post #2

Thank goodness it did. The things drivers can do with rally cars is amazing. By far my favorite sport to watch. I'm sad that it didn't really catch on in the USA. The format is unlike anything that would sell commercially here.

Actually, after the ban of the cars, the manufacturers looked for other races where they could use their monsters. They took them to Dakar, and to the famous Pikes Peak hillclimb race in the USA. Peugeot made a very good movie about it (although it is in a 405T16, which technically never raced group B, the car is basically a 205 T16 with another body shell) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEuZG37gFdM

Re: The Car That Changed Rally Racing Forever

#25

Post by astrobe_ »

hudibras wrote: post #5
makeitsuckless wrote: post #3

It also nearly killed the sport. Other manufacturers responded with Group B racing monsters of their own, like the Lancia Delta S4, which were high tech prototypes only thinly disguised as road cars. The result was exploding costs, exploding popularity (hundreds thousands of people lining the stages without the protection of normal circuit racing) and a series of deadly accidents, eventually leading to the end of the…

>exploding popularity (hundreds thousands of people lining the stages without the protection of normal circuit racing) and a series of deadly accidents, eventually leading to the end of the Group B category I know next-to-nothing about rally racing, but that last photo in the article must highlight what you're talking about: a TV cameraman standing about six feet away from a speeding car on a dirt road. Yikes!

This guy is actually relatively safe, because he is in the "inside" of the turn. The most dangerous places are the "outsides" of turns, where cars out-of-control are more likely to go. I believe that it is a common security measure to place people on the insides rather than the outsides.

Re: The Car That Changed Rally Racing Forever

#26

Post by chrisbennet »

makeitsuckless wrote: post #3

It also nearly killed the sport. Other manufacturers responded with Group B racing monsters of their own, like the Lancia Delta S4, which were high tech prototypes only thinly disguised as road cars. The result was exploding costs, exploding popularity (hundreds thousands of people lining the stages without the protection of normal circuit racing) and a series of deadly accidents, eventually leading to the end of the…

They were called "The Killer B's" at the time.

Re: The Car That Changed Rally Racing Forever

#27

Post by onion2k »

exDM69 wrote: post #20
Nr7 wrote: post #8

It was amazing what the drivers did with these Group B monsters in the mid 80s, considering how different of a sport rallying was back then. The cars were at best several hundreds of horsepowers more powerful than current wrc cars, with much inferior handling. Most cars, if any, didn't even have power steering back then. Also the races were much longer taking place over about 5 days compared to the 3 day events nowad…

These cars were crazy difficult to drive, they had a "locked" four wheel drive system that is similar to an agricultural tractor so you have to slide the car around slow corners or the engine stalls (spectacular and noisy, but not really fast). They had an unsynchronized H-shifter gearbox that requires double declutching on downshifts and careful power application given the huge turbo boost. The driver has to be able…

These cars were crazy difficult to drive, they had a "locked" four wheel drive system that is similar to an agricultural tractor so you have to slide the car around slow corners or the engine stalls (spectacular and noisy, but not really fast).

That makes it sound like there are tractors that can do powerslides.

Re: The Car That Changed Rally Racing Forever

#29

Post by ableal »

exDM69 wrote: post #19
D_Alex wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point (though including "exploding popularity" in the explanation of how the sport was killed is a bit odd...). But then again, the point of racing is supposedly to improve the breed. I am pretty sure that the technologies from rally cars find their way into production cars more readily than those from say Formula 1. And the Audi Quattro sure kicked off the technology race. By the way, a colleague of…

> though including "exploding popularity" in the explanation of how the sport was killed is a bit odd... The issue with rallying is that it used to take place in remote locations with little or no crowds. There are no safety barriers to protect the audience. Additionally, the rally audiences got crazed by deadly dangerous activities like standing in front of the cars until the last second or trying to touch the cars…

Thanks for this one, and the "heel and toe" explanation in the other comment.

I spent a couple minutes on the Wiki page and this little picture sort of sums up rally racing - they soberly resisted writing "flying" in the label that says "Toivonen driving the Manta 400".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Toivonen , http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Henri_Toivonen...

Re: The Car That Changed Rally Racing Forever

#30

Post by jessaustin »

onion2k wrote: post #27
exDM69 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These cars were crazy difficult to drive, they had a "locked" four wheel drive system that is similar to an agricultural tractor so you have to slide the car around slow corners or the engine stalls (spectacular and noisy, but not really fast). They had an unsynchronized H-shifter gearbox that requires double declutching on downshifts and careful power application given the huge turbo boost. The driver has to be able…

These cars were crazy difficult to drive, they had a "locked" four wheel drive system that is similar to an agricultural tractor so you have to slide the car around slow corners or the engine stalls (spectacular and noisy, but not really fast). That makes it sound like there are tractors that can do powerslides.

Really slow powerslides. When operating in mud, turning the front wheels won't turn the tractor, so many tractors have separate brakes for the left and right rear wheels. It's kind of amazing how quickly the tractor turns when you stomp just one of those brakes. The resulting effect is like a powerslide in that the front of the tractor "falls behind" the rear.
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