How exactly 30 years ago, Group B came to an end
Posted on 02-05-2016 at 14:22 by Dizono – 58 Comments”
On 2 may 1986 death of Henri Toivonen and his navigator Sergio Cresto in a tragic accident with a Lancia Delta S4. It was not the first accident that year, but thankfully the last.
Regularly come here on Autoblog, the Group B rally cars of welleer along. Technically brilliant cars and also heavy spoilers to speak to the imagination. ‘Beautiful was the time‘ or ‘that only real rally cars‘ are comments below such articles may encounter. Understandable, but from the truth. The were monsters.
If there is one rally where the drivers compete with that saw, then it was the Rally of Portugal. In no country were the spectators so close to the trail, and acted they are so bad and dangerous. A recipe for accidents, and on 5 march 1986, go wrong. Very wrong.
If the Portuguese Joaquim Santos with his Ford RS200 on a hill jumps, he sees during the descent a spectator on the track. In an effort to move, he loses the power over the steering wheel and he shoots to the right, right into the audience. 31 people are injured, three people died. The man for whom Santos had to move away, come away safe. Below are images of the accident, these are pretty intense.
Ford decides to direct all its cars from the rally back to draw and the other top teams follow. From the drivers is not a bad word about Santos, rather the opposite. On camera, they tell visibly moved how they, also, those could have been who it happened to. How bizarre it actually is that they have cars to drive with more than 400 horsepower, and then inches along spectators. Walter Rörhl once said that he could only drive by the spectators to see as a wall, not as people…
Yet, at the end of march just the Marlboro Safari Rally starts on may 1, followed by the Rally of Corsica. During the second day, however, it is wrong again. Henri Toivonen shoots with his Lancia Delta S4 of the road and at the bottom of a ravine on its roof down. The aluminium fuel tank under the seat of Toivonen during the fall in the gorge ripped open by the trees. During gravelrally is there a protective cover on the bottom, but that was for the asfaltrally in Corsica is not considered necessary. For they imply the whole car filled with petrol, and within a few seconds after the crash, explode the car. Toivonen and Cresto not stand a chance.
Within a few hours after the accident, announces the FIA that it’s over and out for Group B. They allowed the season to finish, but in 1987, there is no longer a place for the damaged samples from the king’s class of rally racing. All the way learned they have no business of their errors, even in 1987, when the rally in Portugal, an incident with spectators, but miraculously there are no casualties.
The continuous quest for more horsepower is a halt called, and instead the emphasis on grip, helped by the growing ties. In 1995 Colin McRae the last driver of the old stamp who is world champion in the WRC. He is the last that the handlebar is used to provide a coarse indication of direction, but forwards with his right foot. In the years that followed, the Fin Tommi Mäkinen supreme, who discovers that with a higher speed, the curve can come if you understand something less hard starts and the car not bothering to let go. Less spectacular, but more effective and faster.