Legend Collin McRae also used to say: "If you doubt (about the incoming corner), fla out"! These drivers were from outerspace and these cars (Group B), were extremingly difficult to drive, they had pure extraordinary power and almost no assist or any electronic system to help drivers steering! I will never forget them racing Acropolis rally back to 80's-90's.
The Navigator is the reason that drivers can go balls to the wall, the pace notes tell the driver what's coming next which allows him to drive right on the limit. A good navigator can make or break a drivers chance of winning.
To add to this... It's not like GPS. He's not navigating the map but the road. It's not just saying there's a left turn in 100 meters but also how fast you can take it, is there for example rocks you need to be aware of, can you cut it and if yes, by how much and so on. As Kitty here wrote, it can make or break your chances and in worst cases your car or neck even.
This is the one of bests co-driver video. Those guys was really insane. "Dear God"!! Ari Vatanen's Rally moment in the Opel Manta 400! 1983 Manx International ua-cam.com/video/cxDz0Z066NI/v-deo.html
@@jonneperola3511 And GPS does not help you at all. Navigator tells you everything you need to know about the corners ahead. GPS only tells you there is a corner. Navigator knows how was you can drive it, where to enter and exit and so on.
"Group B was for men" not entirely accurate.....men, and one very extraordinary woman - Michèle Mouton, runner-up in the 1982 Driver's World Championships
@@margaretnicol3423 being skilled and being pretty are two entirely different things. MM was both, the two ladies you mention might be Skilled but beauty is and always will be in the eye of the beholder. As for keeping it sexist, I’m not going to apologise to anyone for fancying MM when I was a teenage boy, as I recall so did all my rallying mates. My wife has a thing for Brad Pitt, how very sexist of her, yes?
@@margaretnicol3423 if she hadn’t crashed on the final stage she would have beaten 2 of the most famous rallying legends to pilot an Audi Quattro! She is possibly the best driver that hardly anyone knows about
The inside shots of the pedal work of the driver with a regular gearbox and not the sequential ones they have now, is impressive along with him hearing the navigators instructions of what's coming up and responding
litteraly tears came to my eyes watching that section...... i am an amateur hill climb race driver it is just a hobby for me i go to have fun mostly not thinking about placing..... but watching that it was art and unimaginable skill....
@@Rentta It’s one of the things that made the S4 ( Lancia Delta) so dominant was that it was supercharged as well as turbo charged so spooling was t as much an issue, plus the speeds these guys were going with 550 bhp most of the top cars as Group B was unlimited for that era was insane, at the time watching this growing up didn’t think much of it as each year things progressed so it was like an evolution, but now looking back it’s amazing so much skill, the cars sound amazing even by today’s standards way better than the shit box’s they drive today. It was one hell, of an era
Back then it was differnt everyone wanted to see these cars in action (it was same as to Pikes-Peak) and if you guys look closer some cameras & wanted pictures in action with those screaming monsters.. since FIA did not have stipulated any rules for public it was public lunacy of course, because most of safety rules were implemented only closer to the end of Group-B.. BTW in Spain is a tradition for people were running from fighting-bulls that latter were killed by torreadores and in US of A cowboys use to tame wild horses & wild-bulls back in the old days.. For the public this adrenaline was perhaps something like next level of running & taming fighting bulls & wild-horses.. But i also remember W.Rohrl was interview he mentioned that public was important for rally and without public Group-B would not be so famous & legendary.. Like watching TV and looking at Dakar is not the full experience only the safest half of experience but this is life with ups & downs..
During the stops for repairs, mechanics sometimes would find fingertips of the spectators because they would reach for the cars while passing by at crazy speeds.
@@sim_1 well if you have a reference for that I’d be amazed. Of course I expect there is an article at the time reporting such an incident and not just a 2020 post on Facebook or a video recreation … Otherwise I’ll take it as an ‘old wives tale’ …
@@andyxox4168 I can’t remember exactly where I read it, but ‘The Group B Shrine’ would be my best bet. Since there’s a LOT of documentation on that website of everything Group B related. I’m definitely sure though that there is video out there of mechanics finding these fingers. I’ve got that vivid image in my head.
As a former racer/codriver myself, the end of the group B era was insane. They picked out 2 fingers from a spectator from the airducts on one car at the service stop, they guy wanted to touch the car as it went by... And a fun fact, they were FASTER on studded tires on the snow then on gravel. It was impressive, but it was lethal.
Yeah, it was the Peugeot team which pulled two fingers from the T16s air filter. It's air intake ducts were sharp as blades at high speed and one spectator just wanted to touch the passing car 🙄
Group B was held on public roads, and this was way before rally sanctions were ever a thing, so that's why loads of people were in front of them. Group B had a 'do what you want' mentality to it when it came to the engineering side of things, of which, was insane. The entire concept of Group B was awesome, but 100% insane. It was the pinacle of rally, and we will never see anything like it again.
An important part of the footage is from the rally of Portugal in the 80's. Min 4:00 / 4:50 - Portugal rally in the Serra de Sintra area (near Lisbon-Portugal). In 1986, after the death of 3 people and dozens of injuries due to a car accident, the world rules of this class of competition were changed.
Those cars were monster. 500hp or some times momentarily having 700hp and wheying well less than 1000kg or 2200 pounds. Group B rally existed only from 1982 to 1986 and was banned due safety reason. Multiple drivers an co-driver were injured or were killed. To comparison modern WRC cars produce "only" 380hp and are much more safe.
The power was insane, but I think the biggest steps in safety had more to do with advancements in crash protection. Group A counted more fatalities, at least in competitors. Cars were less safe in general back in the day. The regular Ford Sierra for example was a potential death trap, and I doubt that car was an exception.
the problem with group b cars were too fast, todays wrc cars top speed not that great but much safer and easier to handling, also rally stages slowered down if a stage average speed above 80mph or 130kmh next year will have more made chicanes in it. but yes on a normal stage today's wrc cars faster than group b cars because the car handling and tyres etc. evolved a lot
@@rijkemans5114 ... and today's WRC cars are faster than the Group B cars. Imagine what a modern Group B car would be like. They said the Delta S4 did 0-60 on gravel faster than an F1 car of the day. There's an interview with Toivonen somewhere on UA-cam where he mentions something like 2.9 sec 0-100 km/h, and 9 seconds 100 to 200 km/h for the S4.
@@Surestick88 well, I think todays rally cross car accelerate faster than F1 cars (4wd helps a lot) Also, I think that modern rally cars have a bit more power like 500 I think ? Also I don't think it's true that modern car are easier to drive than groupe B cars. Yes easier to drive at the same speed, but when you are at the limit, it is always very hard otherwise, you are not at the limit
Scandinavian Flick: When approaching left hand corner, turn a bit to the right, then quickly turn left, initiate a slide and 4 wheel drift thru a corner. The idea is to deliberately unbalance the car so that the rear loses traction. BTW, countries with free care do not have people running into the wall for fun. No one likes to get hurt and no one likes to see a doctor.
@@sampuhhupmas5666 Awesome, thanks! I've only ever played rally PC games but on the most realistic one I've played I can never get on with RWD cars. I can't seem to hold a straight line with most and steering can often end up with me spinning out, even at low speeds.
@@FlyboyHelosim having driven a real one once, the reason is you can’t feel the traction slipping out in a video game. In real life it is very easy to tell you are losing traction in the back, as opposed to games like dirt rally and the like where there isn’t really a way to indicate that. You just don’t get that information in a sim
Great reaction video guys, as always. And BTW the cute quote you see in the beginning: "WRC is for boys, Group B was for men" is a bit misleading. That beautiful Audi Quattro you see flying around the various tracks in the video, most often than not,is not driven by a boy, neither by a man but by a woman, the aptly named Queen of Rally, French legend Michèle Mouton, who won several group B rallies and nearly won the World Championship in 1982. Oh and she won Pikes Peak too. You should check some videos on her , definetly worth it. Keep bringing nice videos guys.
@Daniele Fabbro The underlying issue is understanding what war actually is. It has nothing to do with what the average soldier thinks it is. The question is not of rights and wrongs but the identity of the whole phenomenon. It's not what you think it is.
Group B was crazy, extremely dangerous and even more popular than F1. I remember going home by car after partying out in Lloret (Girona / Spain) and being overtaken by Piero Liatti and his spectacular Subaru on the outskirts of Lloret at 6:30am. He was not driving especially fast (traveling between stages on open roads), no helmets on just with the headphones. Rally was magic back then.
It was the eighties, no one had money, you made your own entertainment!!! If you went to football there was no guarantee you'd get home ! Adrenaline rush was everything.
Southern-Europe was still pretty poor back than and risk averseness was not much of thing in daily traffic either. Richer countries started getting safer in the 70s but especially in motorracing there was an acceptance of faith and skill was supposed to deal with risks. Reminds me of Jackie Stewart upside down in his F1 car outside the circuit of Zolder with the fuel tank leaking on hot bits and a nun(!) brought him a spanner so he could unscrew his steering wheel which was necessary to get out, by design.
the first inside view, pedal work and reading of the tracknotes in german you've seen there was driver Walter Röhrl and his co pilot Christian Geistdörfer. arguably the best duo at the time and Walter to this day being said to be among the best drivers overall of all time. here in germany Walter is respected for his brutal honesty and witty one liners about cars and driving such as (roughly translated) "a car is only fast enough if, when accelerating, the tears of joy are running horizontally towards the ears." or "you can't treat a car like a human being, a car needs love." or "you car is powerful enough when you're scared to unlock it in the morning." he to this day has the record for the fastest front engined car run on the pikes peak (set back in the day when it was a gravel road).
The dangerous footage you see are in Portugal and I was on the that crowd! Do you think we ever think that the car will get out off the road?!? Off course not! But they did... and I seen the accident with de RS200 in Sintra... well... they got banned for a reason... We were reckless yes! A LOT!!! LOL! You cannot imagine the rush and the sound of that Audi S1!!! Cheers for doing this! Bring us memories! Thank you! :D ;) \m/
Grip B cars were monsters, the sound they made was incredible and the traction and speed on the loose stuff was ridiculous….. and then above that was the skill of the drivers. Insane and great memories.
@@leehanson8658 yes the Audi sounded glorious but I also loved the ‘bark’ of the Metro 6R4. All fantastic although I wasn’t a massive fan of the RS200, it looked too road worthy 😂
The common comment from modern drivers getting into an old Group B is "terrifying". Turbo lag, gear box, clutch and brake pedal pressure, suspension.. None of it comes together until you're flat to the floor at warp factor 11.
As Markku Alen and Juha Kankkunen recently said. There was not much grip because tires were so shit and modern rally cars after only few years after group b was banned were faster.
If I remember even closely correct, the weight/power ratio was 1/2. So, 1000hp in a 500kg car, without anything to help the driver. Like ABS. Maybe I'm wrong, but it was insane.
Walter Röhrl, one of the best drivers of Group B (and overall) has said it's a tragedy that it took people dying for Group B to be binned, but had it not ended when it did the drivers would've refused to drive within a year because the cars were just getting waaaaaay too fast and safety was left behind.
I am a taxi driver in Lisbon, the streets here are very narrow, but we are used to it, and even driving slowly gives the feeling that we are going very fast (of course on some streets 50 km/h is fast). I love it when my customers are American I don't need to tell them to put on their seat belts i just drive 60 or 70 km/h and I hear the seat belt clicks lol
As a fellow Portuguese I can say you are probably "cutting" another 50km/h to those figures... It's more like 100/120 Kms/h in those narrow streets. On another note...I miss those days when I was 7/8 years old and when the rally went close to my home village (Beira baixa region) me and some friends would hitchhike to see them...it was insane.
@@DiaboLusitano Nah, nas ruas do Bairro Alto, Castelo e outras colinas 100km/h é impossível, mas nessas mesmas ruas ir a 70km/h dá a sensação que vamos a 120km/h. Agora em certas ruas e avenidas de Lisboa, é possível ir aos 120km/h, e devido á proximidade dos passeios e carros estacionados parece que vamos a 200 lol.
@@HelloHeLL1000 lul do you use free now, bolt, uber? I live in Lisbon, near the expo, and I think I have heard your name before.. I mean Gonçalves is pretty common but the combination... XD
i'm Portuguese and here we have the most tradicional and famous stages in the world rally and most crazy fans too :D , and 80's was crazy all people with World Rally Champioship Group B, in 1986 was a terrible accident, some peoples die and in 1987 FIA put off Group B cars.
Group B Rally ended because of 2 events ... The accident of the portuguese pilot Joaquim Santos on a stage of the Rally of Portugal in 1986 where 3 people died and 30 got injured and after that the crash and death of Henri Toivonen and his co-pilot Sergio Cresto while they were leading the Tour de Corse Rally in Corsica.
most of those scenes with seas of people were in Portugal, miss those old times. basically group B cars were banned after massive accident in Portugal. even today ppl do the same here. good to see still today ppl looking back at group B stuff, loved it
That Ari Vatanen "Oh dear god" near miss with the wall at the cattle grid is one of my favourite rally moments of all time. Serious car control and not often you hear a co driver freak out
Also the ‘ I think we have a puncture ‘ never mind Ari just drops a cog & keeps the pedal hard down, sounds nice with those 48 or 50 DCOE’s sucking all that air..
I'm Portuguese and one that lived the Sintra's specials at least 3 times before it went down in a bang around 1986. I was there that day, only a kid back then. I think that 4 people died but not sure, a long time ago. Sintra was special, it was a party for us, a family Saturday or a Sunday. The cars went through the roads of Sintra three times in a day. You could feel the adrenalin, the excitement, the danger, a real one. The pilots were always calling for people to be careful but no way. I saw people doing crazy things just to get a cool photo :-) Different times. The horsepower in those cars was amazing, in 1986 I think they were around the 700Hp...I can say that the ground trembled. Those pilots were special, those people were different, I think unconscious but was what it was and it was FUN :-) Enjoy the imagery, I'm happy to have lived and survived those Rallies :-) There's one video of Ari Vatanen clibing-up Pikes Peak that you should watch. Sorry for the long message. Cheers.
Drivers,spectators,organizers,media,governments. Everybody accepted the risks. And that's why everything was so spectacular. Rally,NASCAR,F1,Endurance. The moto of that era was "i accept the risks". Nowadays everybody has become a snowflake and demands safety over anything. The moto of this era is "please don't hurt me".
Couple of facts: -Completely banned after 1986, WAY too dangerous -Cars could only be driven at full throttle because of the massive turbos that would lose pressure if you hesitated with your right-foot. (this from a friends dad who tested out an AUDI group B car at that time, said it wasn't for him, he didn't have the balls steering a rocket through a forest at night) -Some drivers were better in rain, some at night, some in snow and so forth. This is still true. -Spectators fingers were sometimes found in the cockpit after races, torn-of as they tried to touch passing cars. -No barriers along stretches through forests, blind corners and sometimes turns immediately after crests (think F1 at Radillon/Eau Rouge) you drive off .. you die. -Cars took tremendous damage during races, if the engine held the gearboxes and suspension were often ground to dust -Some drivers went on to successful F1 careers. -Rally still exists but is much more restricted in terms of HP and safety and what not. -It is still very much a dangerous sport but not like it was during the legendary group B days. I caught the last glimpses of it as a kid -As far as I can remember there were Americans in Europe competing in it too but it was never a thing in NA. -It does live on at the Pikes Peak races which kept that tradition of unlimited group B lunacy alive. When it was banned, Group B evolved into Pikes Peak essentially. -The rest of the world drew a sigh of relief when it ended. "let's never do that again" they said. Many people we never hear of were mauled, gored or injured during those lunatic years, both spectators and drivers. I remember hearing on the telly about accidents repeatedly, often weekly. It became normalized, it was just how things were supposed to be in rally. The horrific spectacular accidents, tolvonen (I think that was his name) and co-driver especially, was what put the nail in the coffin for group B. I was asked to be a map-reader for a driver when I was 18 and had gotten my drivers license but I was way too scared to do anything like that. Told him I didn't have it in me. Seen way too many accidents on TV. I'm in my fifties now and I sort of regret that (yes). It wouldn't have been Group B though, just a local driver, he gave up his career a few years later and is still alive. He was a friend of my dad. Cheers 🍺
Many surely have commented on this but you had to live it to understand the adrenaline rush it was to see those monsters screaming so close to you. It was insane. I was lucky enough to see them several times at Arganil during the Rally of Portugal. Would go to a close by disco until 2AM then grab the picnic basket and drinks and into the mountain tracks to find a good spot. Eat and drink and party until the first car passed by at around 6 AM. It really was dangerous but so much fun. Before the race started, going up and down the road in the complete dark yelling insults trying to spot a familiar voice to visit their picnic. Mental and really fun. We planed the next one a year in advance. I miss those group B. Never again felt anything like it even if i still love that motorsport.
All most of the images are taken in Portugal, the ones with people in front of the cars definitely are in Portugal. This competition was banned in 80's, in Portugal after an accident where dozens of people died, but now they have it again after almost 30 years. As a curiosity, since the race starts 1973, there was around 50 dead's and 98% in that tragic accident earlier 80's in Portugal, and you could see why.
Simplest explanation about rally is, its look like "legal street racing" coz its done in regular road not a circuit Maybe next time you can check & react to rally crash to see how important spectator are. Great respect to rally spectator, they risk their life to keep the race rooling
Group b was discontinued in '86 for the cars getting so fast and dangerous that after two crashes one causing seven deaths and 31 injured and the deaths of a driver and his navigator after they crashed into a tree and their lancia delta S4 was engulfed in flames. The FIA continues rally to this day but will cancel the season if they get too close to the speeds and power of ground b. Group b will forever remain as the most powerful and fastest era of rally today
We're already at the speeds that GrB was at Maybe not in raw power, but the ability of the cars now greatly outweighs the power difference, which isn't even that big. FIA won't cancel or discontinue rally series because they're too fast, unless the current racing group gets as popular as GrB and/or there's another set of tragic crashes. Vehicle safety has come a long way, and crowd control is much more serious now.
There was a huge accident in Sintra - Portugal in 1986 were a group B rally car lost control and went over the crowd. It killed 2 people and injured 30. This was beginning of the end of the Group B rally, the cars were deemed to be to unsafe. Also in the same year there was an accident that killed the pilot (Henri Toivonen) and his co-pilot in the French Rally.
Thoughts for the team mechanics - I remember mentioned in a Group B documentary they would sometimes find blood, hair and severed fingers in the vehicles
The public had 2 choices. Stand in the inside turn and stay safer but only see the car for a few moments. Or stand in the outside turn so you can see the car for longer but if it flies out the corner it could kill you. And for the fact, if this is illegal or not, We still race this way in Europe.
4:48, you guys paused to talk about danger and deaths from the public. "Fun" fact. You paused in a frame with the sign of "Sintra" in Portugal! Someone has probably already mention this but Group B ended after 2 serious accidents. The first one was exactly there in Sintra, with a Ford RS200 crashing and killing and injuring many people. All pilots decided to stop racing and Portugal Rally was ended that day! On the rally after that, Both pilot Toivonen and his co driver had instant death crashing in Corsica! That was the end for the Crazy Group B where cars had already over 500 HP and very little safety! And this was back in 1985! Most cars kept being in other races used because they were actually in development! The Ford RS200 from the Portugal crash got up to 800 HP in 1986 in Rally Cross races!
If I could drive rally/race cars every day rest of my life, I would :) Thats how much I love the feeling of being free and in a control of that current moment. Amount of adrenaline.. yeah everything would be used :)
Walter Röhrl never drank alcohol, got to bed and up early(he was the first driver at the track), always stays fit by skiing and walking, memorized all tracks before he drove'em(legend says, he walked/skiing up the tracks before the sun rises!). THIS! And his, from god given, talent as driver, his virtuosic shifting and his unique play with the accelerator and the breaks... Legendary!
Good to see some people from Maryland doing UA-cam Group B is an amazing class would like to see it come back of course still have some more restrictions and safety protocols but that was an amazing group
I live in the French Alps, when I was young, 10/15 years old, the Monte Carlo rally passed through my town, there was group B, Walter Rohrl, Harry Vatanen, were our heroes, the show was crazy, especially the special stages in the snow and the night races. it was very dangerous but so beautiful!
@@MetaFootballTV I know but I'm saying I think a few of the fan crashes aswel look at Portugal 86 just months before toivonen and they were questioning it then even drivers were as they were saying the cars are getting to fast to keep up with and think about
For me the Metro was the craziest of the Group B cars. It was a tiny lightweight piece of shit budget granny car that if you crashed at low speed you'd get badly hurt and they turned into something insane.
Group B was when motor sport shone. I remember watching it when I was young and the skill of both the driver and co-driver awe inspiring! So sad when Colin died!
I'd love to see group B come back, but with far stricter crowd control. Most of the problem back then was just idiots being in the way, or worse, the car losing control and tumbling into the audience. With modern tech, (Drones etc) it would be far easier to Marshal a course. It was certainly one of the more spectacular motor-sports, much more entertaining than F1. They'd probably need special permission for over-sized petrol engines but... tourism income alone would probably cover that, let alone TV / net rights.
Group B wasn't banned because of the crowds, it was banned because they basically put F1 motors in 4WD cars and thought it would be ok to let them loose in forests on dirt roads. It was stupidly dangerous for everyone, the drivers and co-drivers more so. I was the same reasons they introduced restricter plate racing in NASCAR. The cars got too fast.
The problem was that those cars were monsters, not the suicidal crowds. There were a fuckload of accidents and the death of Toivonen was the final nail in the coffin for Group B.
You just need to look at the rallying connections on the F1 grid to understand how highly regarded it is. Kimi did it for a few years, Kubica lost most of the function in a hand due to a rally crash, and current Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz Jr's dad is a rally legend.
@@trobi "In 2011, his Formula One career appeared over when he was injured in a horrific crash while competing in the Ronde di Andora rally. Kubica sustained compound fractures to his right elbow, shoulder and leg, and a partially severed right forearm when his car was impaled on a guardrail."
Great vid guys👍 Danny boy ' If a car goes in the air it goes where it wants'😂 totally agree, you fellas reacting to rally car and TT are great. Take care now ✌️🇬🇧✌️🇺🇸🍻🍻
This was in Portugal, back in the 80's. I am 50 now. I watched it live. There was a big crash who killed( not sure) 5 people. After that, we lost the competition in the country for many years. It came back a few years ago. Rally de Portugal. Still watch it live every year. We love our Rally and cars!
Would love you two to arrange a ride along in a rally car with a professional they do the the courses all the time so navigator not required you two are awesome but actually doing it would be amazing 😀
Greatest period for racing in history. The safety and computers have ruined so much - when that guy goes over the cattle grid and nearly stacks it, he had a flat tire. Balls of steel.
The co-driver (navigator) is absolutely critical. He and the driver are a "team" in every sense. They pre-drive the course in a regular road car days prior to the event and collaborate to build their "pace notes". Those are what are used during the race to call out obstacles/turns/jumps/etc well before they occur...typically 1-2 turns prior. That means the driver has to be very good about taking in new information constantly while remembering what was said for the next 2 turns. It's absolutely insane how in tune with one another they have to be. They grade their turns in different ways, but they both agree on how they'll be noted i.e. "4 Left tightens" could mean a moderate turn (rated 1-10) or sharp turn (rated 1-5) and the apex gets tighter at the exit. Watch some full onboards and you'll be amazed. Oh, and the fans STILL line the roads.
You should react to "2016 isle of Man TT Subaru Impreza STI", it's a single lap of the isle of Man TT but in a rally car, you might like to hunt out some night-time rally stages such as Monaco
10:58 hey that’s the Rally of New Zealand right there ,man I remember those times , those Audi Quattro rally cars had a unique sound from there 5 cylinder turbo charged engine , earlier ones had V8s ! Good times
Rally in 2021 is arguably faster than it was back then in group b. They have more aero, better traction, better suspension and steering. But that's what made group b amazing... It was raw, dangerous and took serious balls to go 2021 speed in 1983
Growing up in the UK, this was a sport we watched on the TV most Saturdays. The draw was that the cars had to be road legal, modified but on sale to the general public, that's what made it accessible to us as kids. Seeing a normal family saloon modified to rally. Fantastic memories.
No, not really road legal. Only restriction to group B was that they had to be based of a car with a minimum of 200 made. There are stories about certain manufacturers producing 100, having the inspectors over and showing them those 100, then going to lunch just to move the cars to a different carpark and show the same cars after lunch. The group B had little to no restrictions, hence their extreme power and speed.
I used to have a short wheelbase Audi Sport Quattro and even though it wasn't tuned to 550+ bhp like the Group B version (it only had 300bhp) it was the most savage car I have ever driven. It made a Porsche 911 feel like a VW Beetle. Fun fact - one of the most successful rally drivers of the Audi Sport Quattro was Michelle Mouton. She came second in the 1982 WRC and won that year's International Rally Driver of the Year award.
Yes. In rally there has to be a navigator. Navigators don't just point the directions, they also tell the drivers how fast/slow they have to go. They also tell the drivers about elevations, the difficulty of the turns, etc. It takes a special one to be a navigator.
Group B was banned in 86 and was a unique time for rally. The cars were often called too fast to race, they basically had no limits or restrictions. Formula one power in something that weighs the same as a shopping cart. Modern rally cars are restricted to around 300bhp with antilock breaks and traction control, the Quattro's and Lancia's of the day were making upwards of 600bhp with no driver aids other than the pair of balls it took to drive the monsters.
7:54 If you have seen the full video of that particular clip. You will know that this driver completed the rest of that stage with a missing wheel. Amazing skill. Also if I'm not mistaken there was only one driver fatality during the 'Group B' era.
This is the job of (the passenger )The Pace notes Reader, who reads out the road ahead so you know whats coming up. This is why they can go so fast You can see why europeans dont take to US racing going around an oval track, just plain boring.
Ari Vatanen at 7.53 in a Manta in Ireland I think-"Dear God!" Said the co driver.Iused to love watching Grp B when the world championship came to the UK-mainly watched on a Sunday stately home stage then off to the Welsh forests or Lake district-nothing beats the sound of a works 6R4 through the forest.Past my test mid '84 then went every year through GrpB and on to A and Wrc 'til 2000-plus a couple of years since.
Group b was once a saying if you want to win the hire of a Finn. The fastest gravel rally in the world is in Finland and I am privileged to see these cars going 200km / h and faster on gravel roads, it was quite a crazy time.
The onboard scenes beginning at 5:55 is Walter Röhrl and his Co-driver Christian Geistdörfer with the Audi Quattro S1. Just listen how relaxed he is , knowing that Walter is able to manage any situation.... I mean, they raced with 550 brake-horsepowers in a four-wheel driven car at 220 km/hour..... and the acceleration from 0 to 60 mph with this car was done in 1,8 seconds.... on gravel! Thank you for enjoying....
Some of my fondest memories was when i watched them in Sintra! from 75 up till 84, always on the same corner; just a few feet away of the cars, now i wonder how i could do the same lol!
The navigator almost never looks where the car is going. That's the drivers job. He listens to the driver and feels the car and knows where everything is. They are the unsung hero of rally.
The nostalgia of seeing some of those portuguese rally images i grew up seeing. I'm probably in the crowd there in some of those. The Navigator os still an element in every rally group or class.
Group B was in the 80’s.. it got banned because too many people were getting killed, including some very talented drivers. It is still the greatest period in Rally History.
there was a rally once where a rally instructor got a bad back enjury (like 'needs medical help' ) when landing a hard jump and just kept going in full pain to the end. Thats where they drove him straight to a hospital. the commitment of these people is just insane
The drivers are absolutely insane, but to be the co-driver and sit there in that passenger seat… with no control over the absolute beast of a car? They are ballsy as hell. The faith and trust they must have in their driver to get them to the end of the stage is unmeasurable. A truly iconic era of motorsport.
Footwork of the audi was crazy!!! He went from left foot braking to right foot back to left again within about 3 seconds, that takes some serious muscle memory.
05:26 this Audi Quattro 1,300kg was 700 horsepower acc . was on GRAVEL 0 -100km/h 3,0 seconds ,torque 1270 Nm ! V max 240 km/h. 2680lbs , 510 kW; 0 until 62mph 3,0 sec , torque 790 ft xx 150 mph. Fuel "economy " 1L/1km ( 2,5 miles per gallon ).
This was 1982-1986. The bonkers years of rallying which was so special. Scandanavian flicks around corners and mental jumps. After 86 when the cars were banned Group B cars and drivers took to the Paris -Dakar and Pikes Peak and won!! The greatest parts of the 80s. In america you have so much space. In the UK and in your TT video you see that the UK country roads are narrow, tree lined, stone wall lined and in the 80s before crowd controll spectator lined. ... There is crowd control now BTW as spectators did get in the way and get hit.
8:10 There was an accident in WRC in 2019 (iirc) where a car went down a hillside and sunk in a lake. Crew climbed out, swam ashore, navigator saved his pacenotes even, they pulled the car out and started the next stage the next day.
My younger brother once told me, that on a businesstrip to Finland, he was invited to ride along in a Lancia Thema biturbo Awd. The driver was Magnus Lindblad. It was midwinter and there was nowhere any stretches longer than 70 meters. They did 0-100kph in five sekonds, on ice!! No spinning the wheels, but pure forward driving. And an average speed at 120 kph on icy grabbleroads in the forest, with sharp turns and bumps, that threw you meters high. My brother said this was close call for new undies 😄
the thing with the "navigator" well he is the co-pilot that reads the SELFMADE pacenotes(tells them where to go like right left but also with numbers that tell how sharp the turn is and many more infos) to the driver so he knows wich way the next corner of curve goes and how strong he has to stear in that direction, but also things like the road becoming smaller or wider or bumps and jumps or bridges and tunnels or how long a straight goes on for. "easy right 400" for example means its a very soft right corner that goes 400 meter or after that comes a straight that goes for 400 meters or another example is a "hairpin left" describes a left corner that is basicly as sharp as the curve on a hairpin most of the times either at a descent or ascent wich makes them tricky as you often dont have much wiggleroom wich makes the pacenotes so damn important. and they are selfmade by the drivers and co drivers before the actual race at a slow pace in their car and that is still the case today as far as i know
Great memories of my dad taking me to see the rally cars, sitting on a farm gate at the side of the road. Will never get close to that experience in today's world
11:28 In this part (audi quattro Group B), it was a woman who performed this maneuver. Michele Mouton is the name. It was second in the general championship in the rally. #GroupB #MicheleMoutoun #Hastag
Rally legend Collin McRae (RIP) said :
"Racing on tracks is for fast cars. Rallying is for fast drivers."
O fk I had no idea Collin died RIP
@@madzec He was killed in a helicopter crash in 2007.
And then kimi Raikkonen said its just a hobby after doing both🤣
Legend Collin McRae also used to say: "If you doubt (about the incoming corner), fla out"! These drivers were from outerspace and these cars (Group B), were extremingly difficult to drive, they had pure extraordinary power and almost no assist or any electronic system to help drivers steering! I will never forget them racing Acropolis rally back to 80's-90's.
ua-cam.com/video/DnZMMQsYcFE/v-deo.html
The Navigator is the reason that drivers can go balls to the wall, the pace notes tell the driver what's coming next which allows him to drive right on the limit. A good navigator can make or break a drivers chance of winning.
To add to this... It's not like GPS. He's not navigating the map but the road. It's not just saying there's a left turn in 100 meters but also how fast you can take it, is there for example rocks you need to be aware of, can you cut it and if yes, by how much and so on. As Kitty here wrote, it can make or break your chances and in worst cases your car or neck even.
Or drivers chance of dying!
This is the one of bests co-driver video. Those guys was really insane. "Dear God"!! Ari Vatanen's Rally moment in the Opel Manta 400! 1983 Manx International ua-cam.com/video/cxDz0Z066NI/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/D9-voINFkCg/v-deo.html
when driver and codriver arent getting along...
@@jonneperola3511 And GPS does not help you at all. Navigator tells you everything you need to know about the corners ahead. GPS only tells you there is a corner. Navigator knows how was you can drive it, where to enter and exit and so on.
"Group B was for men" not entirely accurate.....men, and one very extraordinary woman - Michèle Mouton, runner-up in the 1982 Driver's World Championships
This^^^^👏🏼
She was also an utter babe, just saying…. Skilll plus beauty, what a combination. 👌
@@margaretnicol3423 being skilled and being pretty are two entirely different things. MM was both, the two ladies you mention might be Skilled but beauty is and always will be in the eye of the beholder. As for keeping it sexist, I’m not going to apologise to anyone for fancying MM when I was a teenage boy, as I recall so did all my rallying mates. My wife has a thing for Brad Pitt, how very sexist of her, yes?
Not 100% but I think the number 2 early model quattro is mouton in these clips? :D
@@margaretnicol3423 if she hadn’t crashed on the final stage she would have beaten 2 of the most famous rallying legends to pilot an Audi Quattro! She is possibly the best driver that hardly anyone knows about
Walter Rohrl driving on pace notes is awesome, poetry in motion …
And Hannu Mikkola! RIP!
Did Walter Rohrl drive the lancia 037? If it’s who I’m thinking of he was a very very skilled driver, one of the best!
@@robocop3961 yes he drove the 037 when he was with Lancia then later joined Audi and drove the Quattro
@@andrethe9540 the Quattro is a legend
@@robocop3961 Röhrls navigator said, Walter wouldnt need a Navigator, walter just remembered every corner and every stone at the track
The inside shots of the pedal work of the driver with a regular gearbox and not the sequential ones they have now, is impressive along with him hearing the navigators instructions of what's coming up and responding
Walter röhrl great driver .. still is
It also includes lot's and lot's of brake boosting as you had to keep turbo spooled
walter röhlr footage ist monster domwshift left foot breakiing an stay on throttle by breaking hard
litteraly tears came to my eyes watching that section...... i am an amateur hill climb race driver it is just a hobby for me i go to have fun mostly not thinking about placing..... but watching that it was art and unimaginable skill....
@@Rentta It’s one of the things that made the S4 ( Lancia Delta) so dominant was that it was supercharged as well as turbo charged so spooling was t as much an issue, plus the speeds these guys were going with 550 bhp most of the top cars as Group B was unlimited for that era was insane, at the time watching this growing up didn’t think much of it as each year things progressed so it was like an evolution, but now looking back it’s amazing so much skill, the cars sound amazing even by today’s standards way better than the shit box’s they drive today. It was one hell, of an era
"Why are the people in the middle of the road?"
Simple. With was the only way to be close to their heroes, while they tamed real life monsters.
Because they had 9 lifes 🤣
Back then it was differnt everyone wanted to see these cars in action (it was same as to Pikes-Peak) and if you guys look closer some cameras & wanted pictures in action with those screaming monsters.. since FIA did not have stipulated any rules for public it was public lunacy of course, because most of safety rules were implemented only closer to the end of Group-B.. BTW in Spain is a tradition for people were running from fighting-bulls that latter were killed by torreadores and in US of A cowboys use to tame wild horses & wild-bulls back in the old days.. For the public this adrenaline was perhaps something like next level of running & taming fighting bulls & wild-horses..
But i also remember W.Rohrl was interview he mentioned that public was important for rally and without public Group-B would not be so famous & legendary..
Like watching TV and looking at Dakar is not the full experience only the safest half of experience but this is life with ups & downs..
Because Portugal xD
@@joaopinto4535 PORTUGAL, CARALHO ! ! ! lol
@@mindtraveller100 xD
During the stops for repairs, mechanics sometimes would find fingertips of the spectators because they would reach for the cars while passing by at crazy speeds.
Sure, only once supposedly in a Delta Integrale …
@@andyxox4168 they were found in the intake of Ari Vatanen’s Peugeot 205 also.
@@sim_1 well if you have a reference for that I’d be amazed. Of course I expect there is an article at the time reporting such an incident and not just a 2020 post on Facebook or a video recreation … Otherwise I’ll take it as an ‘old wives tale’ …
@@andyxox4168 I can’t remember exactly where I read it, but ‘The Group B Shrine’ would be my best bet. Since there’s a LOT of documentation on that website of everything Group B related.
I’m definitely sure though that there is video out there of mechanics finding these fingers. I’ve got that vivid image in my head.
It was a vivid prank, it never happened
As a former racer/codriver myself, the end of the group B era was insane.
They picked out 2 fingers from a spectator from the airducts on one car at the service stop, they guy wanted to touch the car as it went by...
And a fun fact, they were FASTER on studded tires on the snow then on gravel.
It was impressive, but it was lethal.
What years did you race?
If Group B was still around those fingers could have been mine.
Yeah, it was the Peugeot team which pulled two fingers from the T16s air filter. It's air intake ducts were sharp as blades at high speed and one spectator just wanted to touch the passing car 🙄
Group B was held on public roads, and this was way before rally sanctions were ever a thing, so that's why loads of people were in front of them. Group B had a 'do what you want' mentality to it when it came to the engineering side of things, of which, was insane. The entire concept of Group B was awesome, but 100% insane. It was the pinacle of rally, and we will never see anything like it again.
except now cars are like group b tho just you can't stand on the road ...
@@slavplaysgames The rollcages arent made out of cardboard either
An important part of the footage is from the rally of Portugal in the 80's.
Min 4:00 / 4:50 - Portugal rally in the Serra de Sintra area (near Lisbon-Portugal).
In 1986, after the death of 3 people and dozens of injuries due to a car accident, the world rules of this class of competition were changed.
E o video onde abriram o capot e estava la um dedo de um gajo loool
So tugas sabem estas Infos extras
Those cars were monster. 500hp or some times momentarily having 700hp and wheying well less than 1000kg or 2200 pounds. Group B rally existed only from 1982 to 1986 and was banned due safety reason. Multiple drivers an co-driver were injured or were killed. To comparison modern WRC cars produce "only" 380hp and are much more safe.
The power was insane, but I think the biggest steps in safety had more to do with advancements in crash protection. Group A counted more fatalities, at least in competitors. Cars were less safe in general back in the day. The regular Ford Sierra for example was a potential death trap, and I doubt that car was an exception.
And still today's cars are faster on the stages.
The clostest to a Group-B car today is a Rallycross car.
the problem with group b cars were too fast, todays wrc cars top speed not that great but much safer and easier to handling, also rally stages slowered down if a stage average speed above 80mph or 130kmh next year will have more made chicanes in it. but yes on a normal stage today's wrc cars faster than group b cars because the car handling and tyres etc. evolved a lot
@@rijkemans5114 ... and today's WRC cars are faster than the Group B cars. Imagine what a modern Group B car would be like.
They said the Delta S4 did 0-60 on gravel faster than an F1 car of the day. There's an interview with Toivonen somewhere on UA-cam where he mentions something like 2.9 sec 0-100 km/h, and 9 seconds 100 to 200 km/h for the S4.
@@Surestick88 well, I think todays rally cross car accelerate faster than F1 cars (4wd helps a lot)
Also, I think that modern rally cars have a bit more power like 500 I think ?
Also I don't think it's true that modern car are easier to drive than groupe B cars. Yes easier to drive at the same speed, but when you are at the limit, it is always very hard otherwise, you are not at the limit
Scandinavian Flick: When approaching left hand corner, turn a bit to the right, then quickly turn left, initiate a slide and 4 wheel drift thru a corner. The idea is to deliberately unbalance the car so that the rear loses traction.
BTW, countries with free care do not have people running into the wall for fun. No one likes to get hurt and no one likes to see a doctor.
What about front- or rear-wheel drive cars, as the weight is distributed differently and therefore the handling is different?
@@FlyboyHelosim
RWD cars: gentle flick, full throttle and counter-steer
FWD cars: aggressive flick, full throttle, don't counter-steer
@@sampuhhupmas5666 Awesome, thanks! I've only ever played rally PC games but on the most realistic one I've played I can never get on with RWD cars. I can't seem to hold a straight line with most and steering can often end up with me spinning out, even at low speeds.
@@FlyboyHelosim having driven a real one once, the reason is you can’t feel the traction slipping out in a video game. In real life it is very easy to tell you are losing traction in the back, as opposed to games like dirt rally and the like where there isn’t really a way to indicate that. You just don’t get that information in a sim
@@solkvist8668 Yeah physical feedback counts for a lot and is something that can't really be conveyed in a game.
Great reaction video guys, as always. And BTW the cute quote you see in the beginning: "WRC is for boys, Group B was for men" is a bit misleading. That beautiful Audi Quattro you see flying around the various tracks in the video, most often than not,is not driven by a boy, neither by a man but by a woman, the aptly named Queen of Rally, French legend Michèle Mouton, who won several group B rallies and nearly won the World Championship in 1982. Oh and she won Pikes Peak too. You should check some videos on her , definetly worth it. Keep bringing nice videos guys.
So far, so good. I don't know about the most often than not part though.
Between 1984 and 1987 Walter Röhrl drove one of those, too.
Would you believe Michèle is now 70 years old.
Anyway, legend!
Fair point but that Audi could very well be of Hannu Mikkola as well.
@@Proserpine333 yup, that's true.
That unique Sound of a 5 cylinder engine...awesome!!
Group B had its own soundtrack and one I will never forget.
American: Sure let's go to war!
Also american: Driving fast seams dangerous and you can die.
To be fair, being a crossing guard or landscaping supervisor is more dangerous than being a soldier.
Well it's group b
If you are not scared with this then you're not human
@Daniele Fabbro I think he knows more than you realize.
@Daniele Fabbro I'm not American and you're completely missing the point.
@Daniele Fabbro The underlying issue is understanding what war actually is. It has nothing to do with what the average soldier thinks it is. The question is not of rights and wrongs but the identity of the whole phenomenon. It's not what you think it is.
Group B was crazy, extremely dangerous and even more popular than F1. I remember going home by car after partying out in Lloret (Girona / Spain) and being overtaken by Piero Liatti and his spectacular Subaru on the outskirts of Lloret at 6:30am. He was not driving especially fast (traveling between stages on open roads), no helmets on just with the headphones. Rally was magic back then.
Sounds like the 'amateur racers' at mount Akina meeting Takumi delivering Tofu at 5:00 a.m. in Initial D 😂
It was the eighties, no one had money, you made your own entertainment!!! If you went to football there was no guarantee you'd get home ! Adrenaline rush was everything.
Southern-Europe was still pretty poor back than and risk averseness was not much of thing in daily traffic either. Richer countries started getting safer in the 70s but especially in motorracing there was an acceptance of faith and skill was supposed to deal with risks.
Reminds me of Jackie Stewart upside down in his F1 car outside the circuit of Zolder with the fuel tank leaking on hot bits and a nun(!) brought him a spanner so he could unscrew his steering wheel which was necessary to get out, by design.
There was loads a money in the 80’s and not too much HSE, it was awesome!
I’d love to be born earlier to live in this incredible decade
@@kayzenl7911 it was amazing, what I can remember !!
@@kayzenl7911 Miami in the 80s was the biggest rush of all! Coconut Grove!!!
Sound of that group B Audi straight 5 engine gives me goosebumps every time.
the first inside view, pedal work and reading of the tracknotes in german you've seen there was driver Walter Röhrl and his co pilot Christian Geistdörfer. arguably the best duo at the time and Walter to this day being said to be among the best drivers overall of all time. here in germany Walter is respected for his brutal honesty and witty one liners about cars and driving such as (roughly translated) "a car is only fast enough if, when accelerating, the tears of joy are running horizontally towards the ears." or "you can't treat a car like a human being, a car needs love." or "you car is powerful enough when you're scared to unlock it in the morning."
he to this day has the record for the fastest front engined car run on the pikes peak (set back in the day when it was a gravel road).
The dangerous footage you see are in Portugal and I was on the that crowd! Do you think we ever think that the car will get out off the road?!? Off course not! But they did... and I seen the accident with de RS200 in Sintra... well... they got banned for a reason... We were reckless yes! A LOT!!! LOL! You cannot imagine the rush and the sound of that Audi S1!!! Cheers for doing this! Bring us memories! Thank you! :D ;) \m/
Grip B cars were monsters, the sound they made was incredible and the traction and speed on the loose stuff was ridiculous….. and then above that was the skill of the drivers. Insane and great memories.
The sound of that 5 cylinder Audi was my personal favourite, they were all beasts though.
@@leehanson8658 yes the Audi sounded glorious but I also loved the ‘bark’ of the Metro 6R4. All fantastic although I wasn’t a massive fan of the RS200, it looked too road worthy 😂
The common comment from modern drivers getting into an old Group B is "terrifying". Turbo lag, gear box, clutch and brake pedal pressure, suspension.. None of it comes together until you're flat to the floor at warp factor 11.
As Markku Alen and Juha Kankkunen recently said. There was not much grip because tires were so shit and modern rally cars after only few years after group b was banned were faster.
If I remember even closely correct, the weight/power ratio was 1/2. So, 1000hp in a 500kg car, without anything to help the driver. Like ABS. Maybe I'm wrong, but it was insane.
Walter Röhrl, one of the best drivers of Group B (and overall) has said it's a tragedy that it took people dying for Group B to be binned, but had it not ended when it did the drivers would've refused to drive within a year because the cars were just getting waaaaaay too fast and safety was left behind.
I am a taxi driver in Lisbon, the streets here are very narrow, but we are used to it, and even driving slowly gives the feeling that we are going very fast (of course on some streets 50 km/h is fast). I love it when my customers are American I don't need to tell them to put on their seat belts i just drive 60 or 70 km/h and I hear the seat belt clicks lol
Evil man you are, very sneaky :D
As a fellow Portuguese I can say you are probably "cutting" another 50km/h to those figures... It's more like 100/120 Kms/h in those narrow streets.
On another note...I miss those days when I was 7/8 years old and when the rally went close to my home village (Beira baixa region) me and some friends would hitchhike to see them...it was insane.
@@DiaboLusitano Nah, nas ruas do Bairro Alto, Castelo e outras colinas 100km/h é impossível, mas nessas mesmas ruas ir a 70km/h dá a sensação que vamos a 120km/h. Agora em certas ruas e avenidas de Lisboa, é possível ir aos 120km/h, e devido á proximidade dos passeios e carros estacionados parece que vamos a 200 lol.
@@HelloHeLL1000 lul do you use free now, bolt, uber?
I live in Lisbon, near the expo, and I think I have heard your name before.. I mean Gonçalves is pretty common but the combination... XD
i'm Portuguese and here we have the most tradicional and famous stages in the world rally and most crazy fans too :D , and 80's was crazy all people with World Rally Champioship Group B, in 1986 was a terrible accident, some peoples die and in 1987 FIA put off Group B cars.
Walter Röhrl and the 5 Banger Audi S1 is Legendary and give me Goosebumps
Group B Rally ended because of 2 events ... The accident of the portuguese pilot Joaquim Santos on a stage of the Rally of Portugal in 1986 where 3 people died and 30 got injured and after that the crash and death of Henri Toivonen and his co-pilot Sergio Cresto while they were leading the Tour de Corse Rally in Corsica.
It's great to still have this in some countries. We are allowed to do what we do. Regards
most of those scenes with seas of people were in Portugal, miss those old times. basically group B cars were banned after massive accident in Portugal. even today ppl do the same here. good to see still today ppl looking back at group B stuff, loved it
That Ari Vatanen "Oh dear god" near miss with the wall at the cattle grid is one of my favourite rally moments of all time. Serious car control and not often you hear a co driver freak out
Also the ‘ I think we have a puncture ‘ never mind Ari just drops a cog & keeps the pedal hard down, sounds nice with those 48 or 50 DCOE’s sucking all that air..
I'm Portuguese and one that lived the Sintra's specials at least 3 times before it went down in a bang around 1986. I was there that day, only a kid back then. I think that 4 people died but not sure, a long time ago. Sintra was special, it was a party for us, a family Saturday or a Sunday. The cars went through the roads of Sintra three times in a day. You could feel the adrenalin, the excitement, the danger, a real one. The pilots were always calling for people to be careful but no way. I saw people doing crazy things just to get a cool photo :-) Different times. The horsepower in those cars was amazing, in 1986 I think they were around the 700Hp...I can say that the ground trembled. Those pilots were special, those people were different, I think unconscious but was what it was and it was FUN :-) Enjoy the imagery, I'm happy to have lived and survived those Rallies :-) There's one video of Ari Vatanen clibing-up Pikes Peak that you should watch. Sorry for the long message. Cheers.
The trust between the drivers and the spectators and vice versa is incredible.
Drivers,spectators,organizers,media,governments. Everybody accepted the risks. And that's why everything was so spectacular. Rally,NASCAR,F1,Endurance. The moto of that era was "i accept the risks". Nowadays everybody has become a snowflake and demands safety over anything. The moto of this era is "please don't hurt me".
Couple of facts:
-Completely banned after 1986, WAY too dangerous
-Cars could only be driven at full throttle because of the massive turbos that would lose pressure if you hesitated with your right-foot. (this from a friends dad who tested out an AUDI group B car at that time, said it wasn't for him, he didn't have the balls steering a rocket through a forest at night)
-Some drivers were better in rain, some at night, some in snow and so forth. This is still true.
-Spectators fingers were sometimes found in the cockpit after races, torn-of as they tried to touch passing cars.
-No barriers along stretches through forests, blind corners and sometimes turns immediately after crests (think F1 at Radillon/Eau Rouge) you drive off .. you die.
-Cars took tremendous damage during races, if the engine held the gearboxes and suspension were often ground to dust
-Some drivers went on to successful F1 careers.
-Rally still exists but is much more restricted in terms of HP and safety and what not.
-It is still very much a dangerous sport but not like it was during the legendary group B days. I caught the last glimpses of it as a kid
-As far as I can remember there were Americans in Europe competing in it too but it was never a thing in NA.
-It does live on at the Pikes Peak races which kept that tradition of unlimited group B lunacy alive. When it was banned, Group B evolved into Pikes Peak essentially.
-The rest of the world drew a sigh of relief when it ended. "let's never do that again" they said.
Many people we never hear of were mauled, gored or injured during those lunatic years, both spectators and drivers. I remember hearing on the telly about accidents repeatedly, often weekly. It became normalized, it was just how things were supposed to be in rally. The horrific spectacular accidents, tolvonen (I think that was his name) and co-driver especially, was what put the nail in the coffin for group B.
I was asked to be a map-reader for a driver when I was 18 and had gotten my drivers license but I was way too scared to do anything like that. Told him I didn't have it in me. Seen way too many accidents on TV. I'm in my fifties now and I sort of regret that (yes). It wouldn't have been Group B though, just a local driver, he gave up his career a few years later and is still alive. He was a friend of my dad.
Cheers 🍺
Is he hunky looking though? No point being a rally driver if you're not
Lancia Delta S4 had no turbolag.
Many surely have commented on this but you had to live it to understand the adrenaline rush it was to see those monsters screaming so close to you. It was insane. I was lucky enough to see them several times at Arganil during the Rally of Portugal. Would go to a close by disco until 2AM then grab the picnic basket and drinks and into the mountain tracks to find a good spot. Eat and drink and party until the first car passed by at around 6 AM. It really was dangerous but so much fun. Before the race started, going up and down the road in the complete dark yelling insults trying to spot a familiar voice to visit their picnic. Mental and really fun. We planed the next one a year in advance.
I miss those group B. Never again felt anything like it even if i still love that motorsport.
the reason why people stayed there was passion, pure passion...
All most of the images are taken in Portugal, the ones with people in front of the cars definitely are in Portugal. This competition was banned in 80's, in Portugal after an accident where dozens of people died, but now they have it again after almost 30 years. As a curiosity, since the race starts 1973, there was around 50 dead's and 98% in that tragic accident earlier 80's in Portugal, and you could see why.
7:50 Opel Manta - Ari vatanen is one of the best drivers ever. right there, the co-pilot said "dear god" :D
Simplest explanation about rally is, its look like "legal street racing" coz its done in regular road not a circuit
Maybe next time you can check & react to rally crash to see how important spectator are. Great respect to rally spectator, they risk their life to keep the race rooling
Group b was discontinued in '86 for the cars getting so fast and dangerous that after two crashes one causing seven deaths and 31 injured and the deaths of a driver and his navigator after they crashed into a tree and their lancia delta S4 was engulfed in flames. The FIA continues rally to this day but will cancel the season if they get too close to the speeds and power of ground b. Group b will forever remain as the most powerful and fastest era of rally today
We're already at the speeds that GrB was at Maybe not in raw power, but the ability of the cars now greatly outweighs the power difference, which isn't even that big. FIA won't cancel or discontinue rally series because they're too fast, unless the current racing group gets as popular as GrB and/or there's another set of tragic crashes.
Vehicle safety has come a long way, and crowd control is much more serious now.
There was a huge accident in Sintra - Portugal in 1986 were a group B rally car lost control and went over the crowd. It killed 2 people and injured 30. This was beginning of the end of the Group B rally, the cars were deemed to be to unsafe. Also in the same year there was an accident that killed the pilot (Henri Toivonen) and his co-pilot in the French Rally.
Thoughts for the team mechanics - I remember mentioned in a Group B documentary they would sometimes find blood, hair and severed fingers in the vehicles
there was no rally for many years in Portugal due to the deaths of Group B, the iconic leap is in Portugal, wrc has returned a few years ago
The boys: ask how many people died
The people who know: "Ask Ford"
The public had 2 choices.
Stand in the inside turn and stay safer but only see the car for a few moments.
Or stand in the outside turn so you can see the car for longer but if it flies out the corner it could kill you.
And for the fact, if this is illegal or not, We still race this way in Europe.
Group B was a pretty damn good representarion of the 80's.
4:48, you guys paused to talk about danger and deaths from the public. "Fun" fact. You paused in a frame with the sign of "Sintra" in Portugal! Someone has probably already mention this but Group B ended after 2 serious accidents.
The first one was exactly there in Sintra, with a Ford RS200 crashing and killing and injuring many people. All pilots decided to stop racing and Portugal Rally was ended that day! On the rally after that, Both pilot Toivonen and his co driver had instant death crashing in Corsica!
That was the end for the Crazy Group B where cars had already over 500 HP and very little safety! And this was back in 1985!
Most cars kept being in other races used because they were actually in development!
The Ford RS200 from the Portugal crash got up to 800 HP in 1986 in Rally Cross races!
If I could drive rally/race cars every day rest of my life, I would :) Thats how much I love the feeling of being free and in a control of that current moment. Amount of adrenaline.. yeah everything would be used :)
Group B was the golden age of rally...
Lancia Delta S4... The italian beast... Rip Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto
When the man started fearing the cars, a woman rises up to glory : Michele Mutton. The lady who tamed the dual engine beast.
"Mutton" 🤣🤣
Walter Röhrl never drank alcohol, got to bed and up early(he was the first driver at the track), always stays fit by skiing and walking, memorized all tracks before he drove'em(legend says, he walked/skiing up the tracks before the sun rises!). THIS! And his, from god given, talent as driver, his virtuosic shifting and his unique play with the accelerator and the breaks...
Legendary!
Good to see some people from Maryland doing UA-cam Group B is an amazing class would like to see it come back of course still have some more restrictions and safety protocols but that was an amazing group
There's no factory support anymore. There are only 2 manufacturers competing this year.
I live in the French Alps, when I was young, 10/15 years old, the Monte Carlo rally passed through my town, there was group B, Walter Rohrl, Harry Vatanen, were our heroes, the show was crazy, especially the special stages in the snow and the night races. it was very dangerous but so beautiful!
Group B ran from 82 to 86, when Toivonen and his co-pilot were killed in a horrific accident.
Plus a few of the fan crashes I reckon
@@dewidavies9161 No. Stopped in 86 due to the Toivonen accident.
@@MetaFootballTV I know but I'm saying I think a few of the fan crashes aswel look at Portugal 86 just months before toivonen and they were questioning it then even drivers were as they were saying the cars are getting to fast to keep up with and think about
Group B was insane, I remember. Incredible cars, but just too dangerous. And yes, Walter Rohrl was a superhuman.
For me the Metro was the craziest of the Group B cars. It was a tiny lightweight piece of shit budget granny car that if you crashed at low speed you'd get badly hurt and they turned into something insane.
Standing Quarter mile in 11.5 seconds, it was a face melter, even by today's standards😂
Group B was when motor sport shone. I remember watching it when I was young and the skill of both the driver and co-driver awe inspiring!
So sad when Colin died!
I'd love to see group B come back, but with far stricter crowd control. Most of the problem back then was just idiots being in the way, or worse, the car losing control and tumbling into the audience. With modern tech, (Drones etc) it would be far easier to Marshal a course. It was certainly one of the more spectacular motor-sports, much more entertaining than F1. They'd probably need special permission for over-sized petrol engines but... tourism income alone would probably cover that, let alone TV / net rights.
yeah, outside of a corner would be a no unless its up hill, distance between the person and the track etc
I remember when this was on the TV all the time, it was fantastic.
Group B wasn't banned because of the crowds, it was banned because they basically put F1 motors in 4WD cars and thought it would be ok to let them loose in forests on dirt roads. It was stupidly dangerous for everyone, the drivers and co-drivers more so. I was the same reasons they introduced restricter plate racing in NASCAR. The cars got too fast.
The problem was that those cars were monsters, not the suicidal crowds. There were a fuckload of accidents and the death of Toivonen was the final nail in the coffin for Group B.
Agreed. I stand by my statement - I'd love to see an "unlimited" class, with no trackside spectators... Just let them rip, full throttle.
The Golden days of Rallying and I was lucky enough to be there. Just f**king awesome.
You just need to look at the rallying connections on the F1 grid to understand how highly regarded it is. Kimi did it for a few years, Kubica lost most of the function in a hand due to a rally crash, and current Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz Jr's dad is a rally legend.
Kubica lost half of his hand function in the Canada F1 GP not in rally
@@trobi "In 2011, his Formula One career appeared over when he was injured in a horrific crash while competing in the Ronde di Andora rally. Kubica sustained compound fractures to his right elbow, shoulder and leg, and a partially severed right forearm when his car was impaled on a guardrail."
@@trobi Kubica broke his leg during that crash if I remember correctly
@@gavinharter3770 He also badly injured his hand, the guardrail almost crossed the car front to rear.
in old school rally it was the spectators job to avoid getting hit, not the drivers job to avoid hitting you.
Great vid guys👍 Danny boy ' If a car goes in the air it goes where it wants'😂 totally agree, you fellas reacting to rally car and TT are great. Take care now ✌️🇬🇧✌️🇺🇸🍻🍻
This was in Portugal, back in the 80's. I am 50 now. I watched it live. There was a big crash who killed( not sure) 5 people. After that, we lost the competition in the country for many years. It came back a few years ago. Rally de Portugal. Still watch it live every year. We love our Rally and cars!
Would love you two to arrange a ride along in a rally car with a professional they do the the courses all the time so navigator not required you two are awesome but actually doing it would be amazing 😀
Greatest period for racing in history. The safety and computers have ruined so much - when that guy goes over the cattle grid and nearly stacks it, he had a flat tire. Balls of steel.
The forest sections in Wales were terrifying
The co-driver (navigator) is absolutely critical. He and the driver are a "team" in every sense. They pre-drive the course in a regular road car days prior to the event and collaborate to build their "pace notes". Those are what are used during the race to call out obstacles/turns/jumps/etc well before they occur...typically 1-2 turns prior. That means the driver has to be very good about taking in new information constantly while remembering what was said for the next 2 turns. It's absolutely insane how in tune with one another they have to be. They grade their turns in different ways, but they both agree on how they'll be noted i.e. "4 Left tightens" could mean a moderate turn (rated 1-10) or sharp turn (rated 1-5) and the apex gets tighter at the exit. Watch some full onboards and you'll be amazed. Oh, and the fans STILL line the roads.
Can you do the best bits of Colin McRae compilation please? Love the videos guys keep up the good work!👍
Fact is, not hitting people was part of the challenge and the crowd was ok with it. Jumping away just in time was the goal. Different times.
You should react to "2016 isle of Man TT Subaru Impreza STI", it's a single lap of the isle of Man TT but in a rally car, you might like to hunt out some night-time rally stages such as Monaco
Good call!
Not sure why but that tribute always makes me emotional, nostalgia for a time I never got to experience!
Because you dont need safety and regulations. Real emotions are in pure natural risky actions.
10:58 hey that’s the Rally of New Zealand right there ,man I remember those times , those Audi Quattro rally cars had a unique sound from there 5 cylinder turbo charged engine , earlier ones had V8s ! Good times
Rally in 2021 is arguably faster than it was back then in group b. They have more aero, better traction, better suspension and steering. But that's what made group b amazing... It was raw, dangerous and took serious balls to go 2021 speed in 1983
Growing up in the UK, this was a sport we watched on the TV most Saturdays. The draw was that the cars had to be road legal, modified but on sale to the general public, that's what made it accessible to us as kids. Seeing a normal family saloon modified to rally. Fantastic memories.
No, not really road legal. Only restriction to group B was that they had to be based of a car with a minimum of 200 made. There are stories about certain manufacturers producing 100, having the inspectors over and showing them those 100, then going to lunch just to move the cars to a different carpark and show the same cars after lunch.
The group B had little to no restrictions, hence their extreme power and speed.
@@reshurc And after the inspection, disassemble that 100 cars and use the parts as replacements for the race cars (Lancia Stratos, for example).
I used to have a short wheelbase Audi Sport Quattro and even though it wasn't tuned to 550+ bhp like the Group B version (it only had 300bhp) it was the most savage car I have ever driven. It made a Porsche 911 feel like a VW Beetle. Fun fact - one of the most successful rally drivers of the Audi Sport Quattro was Michelle Mouton. She came second in the 1982 WRC and won that year's International Rally Driver of the Year award.
Why are they in the road? One word, adrenaline
I heard the mechanics used to find severed fingers and hair caught between body panels back in the pits afterwards. 🤣
Yes. In rally there has to be a navigator. Navigators don't just point the directions, they also tell the drivers how fast/slow they have to go. They also tell the drivers about elevations, the difficulty of the turns, etc. It takes a special one to be a navigator.
Group B was banned in 86 and was a unique time for rally. The cars were often called too fast to race, they basically had no limits or restrictions. Formula one power in something that weighs the same as a shopping cart. Modern rally cars are restricted to around 300bhp with antilock breaks and traction control, the Quattro's and Lancia's of the day were making upwards of 600bhp with no driver aids other than the pair of balls it took to drive the monsters.
Wrc today os 380hp not 300
They were run at 450 h.p.
They could make over 600, but barely lasted a stage, let alone the whole course.
U Yeah, my favorite motorsports back in time. My favorite car i had for 6years was a Lancia Delta Integrale HF
With all the reviews you guys do like the rally stuff and the rugby are you amazed at what goes on in the world outside the usa?
You mean in the ’Real World’ … 🤔
@@andyxox4168 the free world
7:54 If you have seen the full video of that particular clip. You will know that this driver completed the rest of that stage with a missing wheel. Amazing skill.
Also if I'm not mistaken there was only one driver fatality during the 'Group B' era.
This is the job of (the passenger )The Pace notes Reader, who reads out the road ahead so you know whats coming up. This is why they can go so fast
You can see why europeans dont take to US racing going around an oval track, just plain boring.
There's more racing going on here than just NASCAR.
Ari Vatanen at 7.53 in a Manta in Ireland I think-"Dear God!" Said the co driver.Iused to love watching Grp B when the world championship came to the UK-mainly watched on a Sunday stately home stage then off to the Welsh forests or Lake district-nothing beats the sound of a works 6R4 through the forest.Past my test mid '84 then went every year through GrpB and on to A and Wrc 'til 2000-plus a couple of years since.
Group b was once a saying if you want to win the hire of a Finn. The fastest gravel rally in the world is in Finland and I am privileged to see these cars going 200km / h and faster on gravel roads, it was quite a crazy time.
The onboard scenes beginning at 5:55 is Walter Röhrl and his Co-driver Christian Geistdörfer with the Audi Quattro S1. Just listen how relaxed he is , knowing that Walter is able to manage any situation.... I mean, they raced with 550 brake-horsepowers in a four-wheel driven car at 220 km/hour..... and the acceleration from 0 to 60 mph with this car was done in 1,8 seconds.... on gravel! Thank you for enjoying....
Some of my fondest memories was when i watched them in Sintra! from 75 up till 84, always on the same corner; just a few feet away of the cars, now i wonder how i could do the same lol!
The navigator almost never looks where the car is going. That's the drivers job. He listens to the driver and feels the car and knows where everything is. They are the unsung hero of rally.
The nostalgia of seeing some of those portuguese rally images i grew up seeing. I'm probably in the crowd there in some of those. The Navigator os still an element in every rally group or class.
WRC in Northland NZ was one of the best I've been to. Absolutely awesome!
Group B was in the 80’s.. it got banned because too many people were getting killed, including some very talented drivers. It is still the greatest period in Rally History.
there was a rally once where a rally instructor got a bad back enjury (like 'needs medical help' ) when landing a hard jump and just kept going in full pain to the end. Thats where they drove him straight to a hospital. the commitment of these people is just insane
The drivers are absolutely insane, but to be the co-driver and sit there in that passenger seat… with no control over the absolute beast of a car? They are ballsy as hell. The faith and trust they must have in their driver to get them to the end of the stage is unmeasurable. A truly iconic era of motorsport.
Footwork of the audi was crazy!!! He went from left foot braking to right foot back to left again within about 3 seconds, that takes some serious muscle memory.
05:26 this Audi Quattro 1,300kg was 700 horsepower acc . was on GRAVEL 0 -100km/h 3,0 seconds ,torque 1270 Nm ! V max 240 km/h. 2680lbs , 510 kW; 0 until 62mph 3,0 sec , torque 790 ft xx 150 mph. Fuel "economy " 1L/1km ( 2,5 miles per gallon ).
This was 1982-1986. The bonkers years of rallying which was so special. Scandanavian flicks around corners and mental jumps. After 86 when the cars were banned Group B cars and drivers took to the Paris -Dakar and Pikes Peak and won!! The greatest parts of the 80s. In america you have so much space. In the UK and in your TT video you see that the UK country roads are narrow, tree lined, stone wall lined and in the 80s before crowd controll spectator lined. ... There is crowd control now BTW as spectators did get in the way and get hit.
8:10
There was an accident in WRC in 2019 (iirc) where a car went down a hillside and sunk in a lake.
Crew climbed out, swam ashore, navigator saved his pacenotes even, they pulled the car out and started the next stage the next day.
Group B....legendary category back in the day. The cars were all ball out madness over 600BHP full send~
My younger brother once told me, that on a businesstrip to Finland, he was invited to ride along in a Lancia Thema biturbo
Awd. The driver was Magnus Lindblad.
It was midwinter and there was nowhere any stretches longer than 70 meters.
They did 0-100kph in five sekonds, on ice!!
No spinning the wheels, but pure forward driving. And an average speed at 120 kph on icy grabbleroads in the forest, with sharp turns and bumps, that threw you meters high.
My brother said this was close call for new undies 😄
the thing with the "navigator" well he is the co-pilot that reads the SELFMADE pacenotes(tells them where to go like right left but also with numbers that tell how sharp the turn is and many more infos) to the driver so he knows wich way the next corner of curve goes and how strong he has to stear in that direction, but also things like the road becoming smaller or wider or bumps and jumps or bridges and tunnels or how long a straight goes on for. "easy right 400" for example means its a very soft right corner that goes 400 meter or after that comes a straight that goes for 400 meters or another example is a "hairpin left" describes a left corner that is basicly as sharp as the curve on a hairpin most of the times either at a descent or ascent wich makes them tricky as you often dont have much wiggleroom wich makes the pacenotes so damn important. and they are selfmade by the drivers and co drivers before the actual race at a slow pace in their car and that is still the case today as far as i know
Great memories of my dad taking me to see the rally cars, sitting on a farm gate at the side of the road. Will never get close to that experience in today's world
11:28 In this part (audi quattro Group B), it was a woman who performed this maneuver.
Michele Mouton is the name. It was second in the general championship in the rally.
#GroupB
#MicheleMoutoun
#Hastag