First Rally Experiences

Not “the” first but one of my first was going to watch the British round of the world championships in, I think it was, 1985. Whatever, it was the first event that all the final iterations, before they got banned, of the Group B monsters were present. There were short wheel base Audis, the Ford RS200, the Metro 6R4, Lancia Delta S4 and other crazy machines. I was in my late teens or early 20s and it was cold and damp as it should be in November.

I vividly remember waiting patiently for about 2 hours leaning against a tree in a forest about a yard from the edge of this dirt track, about 50 feet from a right 2. Eventually we heard the distant sound of helicopters followed soon thereafter by the chainsaw-like buzz of a 500hp 5 cylinder rally beast and the BANG echoeing off the trees as they got off the throttle. All of a sudden a fire breathing angry monster appeard a few hundred yards down the track from me and screamed towards me. It made a small twitch as it flew over the railway tracks before reaching me at what happened to be the braking point for the corner. The ground and trees were shaking and the noise was incredible. The Audi seemed to come to an immediate stop, turn through 90 degrees while standing still, wagged its tail and winked at me. let out another roar (showing its teeth) and leapt forward like an angry lion. My jaw was on my chest I was so stunned and as I looked round every tree had a similarly gobsmacked face peering from around it. The whole scene was repeated again two minutes later and over again every minute or two with slightly diminishing levels of ferocity utill the group A cars finally showed up and we left to find another stage. The strange thing is that nobody spoke till we got back to the car, we were all so stunned. Absolutly brilliant, never again will this scene be repeated :(