The idea was basically not to fix the problems, double down and effectively have people run LMP cars on dirt to be even more insane. Group S would have been really silly.
Then it would have been replaced by group S which would have been a disaster. LMP cars that are not based on road cars is a dream by executives who dont understand the fans and the car guys. Also a pipedream for the one or two team with the most money. It always ends in loss of intrest from the fans and teams jumping off cuz of higher dev cost to be competetive.
Henri Toivonen in an interview just before the crash: ”This is crazy. We are driving in this rally more kilometres in a day than the whole Rally Sweden. It’s not about physical fatigue, but mental. Brains do not follow.” Those were his last words.
Yep.. I've seen the interview... I've seen Henri Toivonen and hannu mikkola protest about the events being too long and not being able to maintain concentration.... in fact after Toivonen's death the events were finally shortened somewhat.
One of the reasons I love group b, was that the drivers weren't rivals,well, not as much as other racing types, they all banded together to get their voices out and i find that incredible, that doesn't happen too often
@@kaushikraikar1105 that sounds viable given that downhill mountain biking has the same "racing against nature" focus and has the same comradery. its unlikely that is a coincidence.
Rally in Portugal was insane. It was like the country stopped just for the races. My mother, the safest, calmest and most cautious person in the world, to this day says that her biggest dream is to be inside a rally car while it zooms through the road. That's how insane rally was in Portugal. One of my earliest ever memories, is being at a rally with my parents, them running just to get the perfect spot to show me the cars
@@dansihvonen8218 Absolute madness. You'd see them facing down the cars sometimes too... what the hell?! I've seen cars have to slow down to avoid hitting Darwin hopefuls quite a few times over the years.
After Group B ended a lot of the cars were modified even further and became Rallycross monsters. I used to watch them testing at an aerodrome where I grew up and those things were shockingly fast
I'm portuguese, and my father went to that Portugal race when he was a teenager. He was a few curves away from where the accident happened so he didn't see it, but he still remembers seeing heavily injured people, some missing legs, when he was leaving. Rally Group B was so crazy, it's even hard to believe that it was allowed in the first place.
It should still be around, but spectators have to ruin everything. How hard is it to see that a car is barrelling down the road towards you at over 110kmh? Get off and away from the fucking road.
"Allowed?" People should be free to race. The fans on the sidelines were the idiots. Let them be idiots too. This should be titled, _The Fans That Killed Their Own Race._
@@bennyb.1742 no, very very far from the truth. the only reason drivers are faster now is the batman preparation theory. they keep the roads maintained and every team has an entire R&D department dedicated year around to helping these people get the best times . group B drivers did it with a few low speed test runs and faith in their co driver.
@Raspian Kiado it really had nothing to do with the spectators. since there was such lack in regulation, there was a lot of speculation that most teams would eventually cheat the few safety rules they had nobody talks enough about the paper mache roll cages.. little bits of flimsy metal shouldnt be the only remnants of these cars. like, a lot of the crashes you couldnt find the roll cages. just the thin strips used to keep the body mods on
i feel like it could be both, The cars, And the spectators. If the cars were safer but the spectators were still messing with the drivers trying to trip them and sabotaging certain drivers, Something bad was bound to happen there at some point. But same goes the other way around, If the cars didn't change, Something would probably still go horribly wrong due to the way they were even without spectators jumping in. But that's just my 2 cents though.
Hey, man! I have been watching a few of your videos, and I have to say that I appreciate what you do for your viewers. I am 51 and used to race go-karts with the likes of Bryan Herta, one or two of the Pedregon brothers, and Page Jones, and a lot has happened since then. Of course, all of them went on to do bigger and better things, with the exception of Page Jones' life changing accident. Since those days, I haven't been involved much in the racing scene, but I have tried to keep up as best as I can, so watching your videos has been a little refreshing. It has brought back some memories, good and bad, but it is obvious that you do your homework before posting. Thank you for doing this. Again, it is refreshing to watch your videos, especially to see someone much younger than I am be so involved in doing what you do. Keep up the good work, brother!
crazy hardcore fans too! I remember a winner of Group B met a fan he actually hit and broke the fans leg!he apologized, and the fan got angry with him!he said "You won Group B, you dont apologize!" over 800 horsepower on a car Less than 800 kilos!dual turbo was a bit overkill!
Can confirm the crash of Joaquim Santos, one of the women i worked with on my first job is the daughter of one of Santos team meachanic and hearing her talk about it and how her father saw Santos still in shock after getting back to them was mind blowing. I can also confirm that we Portuguese are crazy about motorsport, be it Rally, Rallycross, Hillclimb, F1 or MotoGP. If it has wheels and an engine, we go crazy over it
@@ANSWERTHECALLOFJESUSCHRIST oh yeah, that's for sure. Once i got my license i got passionate about cars and then i got passionate about motorcycles and got my motorcycle license
You are not the first UA-camr to do an analysis of Group B, but I most certainly enjoyed yours more. A Razor-sharp intellect coupled with a prodigious amount of hard-core research and spiced to perfection by being a good narrator. I think you've overtaken Hunter's Moon
i absolutely love how you said exactly how it is. group B didnt have to go. they should have listened to the drivers and limited spectator contact and made safer cages.
Ever see the short film Climb Dance? It's glorious. Ari Vatanen's 1988 record-breaking run up Pike's Peak in a 4-wheel steering Peugot 405 Turbo 16 design for Group S... The editing is sublime.
The memories I have from group B will for ever stay with me, I remember as a kid going to Sintra in Portugal 🇵🇹 with my family and see these monster cars and drivers on the narrow roads, the smells, noises and the roar of the crowds it’s too hard to describe. What a great thing it was but times change. Now to get close to this kind of experience only at the Isle of Man 🇮🇲 TT 😮
Yup, the reason why i loved rally so much. Watching group B era of rally was mesmerizing not only because the cars were fast, but also that the drivers were so skilled that they could pull off crazy corners in such fast cars driving on dirt and gravel.
Only the 2nd video of yours I've seen as I only stumbled on your channel recently and you have a new subscriber. Even though I already know the content being covered it's great to see it being covered in a different way, by a passionate fan. Keep up the great work.
Rally fans haven't changed, I attended WRC Rally Croatia this year and I stood on a hill before a hairpin, a lot of people stood on the outside of a decently fast hairpin when the road was wet, a marshal came before the event started and told the people to go away but after the marshal left more and more people came back to the hairpin. There were like 30-50 people behind the guardrail of the hairpin
@@InstaMemesio the spectators are THEE main fucking issue. Sadly it doesn't matter, a group of people would get hit by a car and almost die, and they'll be right back next year standing in the same spot.
I also saw footage of a recent rally event where idiots were setting off rockets and fireworks on a fast right hander in the dark. I'd have the lot carted off and given a lifetime ban.
People standing ON the track were the real problem, according to Michelle Mouton. She now goes through the stages shooing people away from the track, especially on the outside of corners.
The fans didn't know the risk, that's the whole point. "Fans" didn't know the chance that when pushing hard, the car might strike a rock or log on the apex and launch itself into 50 spectators too close by, or fall off a ditch in a power slide and catapult into a 'safe' space of families and amateur photographers. Those were the risks. It was exciting, it was almost beyond belief, but it was the lack of crowd control that killed it.
Moving on to have the big drivers race with Group A cars was definitely the right choice, and Group B was just madness. Yet three decades later, the Isle of Man TT continues to be way deadlier to drivers and spectators than Group B had ever been. Group B was far from the peak of racing insanity.
Group was the pinnacle of rally racing. It was the answer to the question" how far could we go in the ultimate pursuit of speed"?. There has never been anything like it before and after. But it came at a cost.
@@Metalbringer92 I mostly care about the people in the cars, their safety and their mental health. But yeah, they definitely should have mandated Mad-Max style grille guards, among other things.
@@Metalbringer92The drivers were complaining they couldn't keep up with these insane cars. Screw the spectator thing these cars were straight up deadly for the drivers.
You are a great story teller and I always find myself checking to see if you've uploaded. I've always wanted to know more about rally, so I appreciate you making this video
Man, looking at your image as you give the narrative, you are a relatively young man and certainly wasn't around during the group B era but boy, your research is superb, impeccable,accurate,and well done. I was around and witnessed it all, collected lots of material from the Teams at the time and I can tell you, you've nailed it spot on. Good job mate!
@@Franko384 That's fair. I'm thinking of how it would be like seeing a movie in theaters instead of on DVD. Nothing beats seeing it in the fresh format.
@@Franko384 While they the modern WRC cars can indeed go much faster through a stage than group B cars, they lack the raw power and especially the imperfectness of group B cars, as the modern WRC cars are full with high tech stuff that makes it much easier to drive them than a Group B car, making the driving much more perfect and thus more boring (but safer!) than the wild action of Group B, where drivers constantly had to fight the car to stay on course.
@@realQuiGon For me, the thing that sets group b apart from modern rally is the variety. Modern WRC Cars all sound similar and share a lot of components, while group b cars had very different approaches to their design phylosophy. The modern WRC cars are less interesting but more exciting, if that makes sense.
One thing to remember that the "Groups" were used in motorsport in general and not just rally. Group A actually competed in both rally and sports cars and Group B sport cars were also in the works from Porsche and Ferrari. It was only Group C that was purely sports prototypes which didn't get used in rally.
Martin Schanche from Norway were probably the most crazy Group B driver from 1970's to 1990's, but still didn't drive in to any people. Martin Tweaked his own engines, and is why he won many races.
Actually... he jkust used Group B car in Rallycross Division 2 category for many years but because he didn't drive one in any rally he cannot actually be referred as Group B driver. Better to just say he was the most crazy rallycross driver with any car he drove, in my opinion too 😅
Yeah but the mental toll it takes on the driver, who wants no part in that, must be insane. That's what pisses me off about letting spectators onto the tracks.
Always had a dubbel feeling about Group B. On the one hand you don't want anyone to get hurt but at the same time that extreme risk is what made Group B so awesome... also no one forced anyone to get behind the wheel or stand next to the course so thats also one way to look at it.
Well... the spectators part is sort of arguable, if the organisers are selling an unlimited number of tickets, far beyond the capacity of the course, it gets iffy. The drivers I totally agree with you, and I'm glad we still have IoM and just road racing in general in bikes.
@@zedballs What do you mean selling tickets? Group B rally was free to watch live, hence the sea of people freaking out watching those monsters roaring through slim roads at break neck speed and power, the closest the better.
The Stratos will always be one of my favorite cars, even if it wasn't in Group B. It's like a little flying saucer for the dirt, with a cool over cabin wing
I just found this Channel today! Will share with my friends! This man is great, passionate historian! Truly I have learned so much from these videos and the editing is incredible! I can’t wait for the next video!!!😊
10:35 You forgot to mention there that one major reason for his death was the rollcage since after some investigation they found out that the roll cage was made out of paper which made the car very fragile
I saw an interview with röhrl recently and the way he described the lancia 037‘s roll cage was nothing short of terrifying. He said that you could see it flex when going over bumps and knew all along that a crash meant certain death. its crazy that they raced these things under rally conditions.
Don't be ridiculous. The cars were scrutinized before each rally at minimum. Rohrl said that the 037 was the best handling, most precise rally car he ever drove. A rigid chassis is the foundation of a good handling rally car. The 037 was strong enough to win the brutal Acropolis Rally and to finish in high positions in the Safari.
Insane. That’s the only answer. Imagine what we could do with things like Vtec and more advance turbos. Along with the wider use of carbon fiber parts it would just be insane.
Current WRC cars are now 5 seconds a mile quicker than group B that is to be expected. Spectator accidents are now very rare because crowd control is now marshalled properly. The biggest issue with Group B was the difficulty driving them, they were hard work. Don't forget and this is notable, Santos who went off in the RS200 in Portugal was an average driver with a wealthy team owner, he went from a 240 hp BDA mk2 escort to a 430 hp RS200 overnight. By the way the E2 S1 quattro was officially quoted at 444 hp but it was always the most powerful at 550 hp for the Monte and Portugal in 1986. Good video with some slightly embellished data. Ex DSM employee
I have seen so many people talking about the glorious group B rally. This version of this group B rally is new. How FIA ignored drivers and team's plea for better conditions for rallying. Thanks albon
Group B was probably the best rally, paired with fast jumps and no horsepower limit, it could of been long-lasting if they could fix their problems after the first crash.
Get PayPal Honey for FREE today ▸ joinhoney.com/albon. Honey finds coupons with one click. Thanks to Honey for sponsoring this video! NOTE: PLEASE BE CAREFUL OF SCAMS IN THE COMMENTS. I will make a full UA-cam post and make a video on the second channel notifying the winner. I will not leave you a comment reply. Also, the official Albon account has a ✔️ checkmark next to it's name. Please be careful!
Hey albon. I think someone is impersonating you. I wrote another comment on the video and someone responded telling me to head to telegram as I won a price. You’d better warn people
I worked service for a friend of mine at the last Group B rally, the 1986 Olympus Rally in Tacoma Washington. But my buddy wasn't even close to a Group B driver, his car of choice was a SAAB 96 which was reaching the end of its eligibility. So the last Group B rally was also the last WRC rally for the venerable SAAB 96! Unfortunately my friend's car gave out about half-way through, regulating us to spectators. We were well aware of what had happened earlier in the year and took some precautions (made easier by the small crowds compared to Europe) but in retrospect in a couple of cases maybe not enough (though I was standing next to Steve Millen at one point so it's not like we were clueless newbies compared to everyone else, that's just the way it was. It did make for some good memories and some inside access as since we were part of the rally we had access to the drivers and other team workers that we would not have had otherwise. I also spectated at the '87 and '80 Olympus WRC rallies but they weren't the same as that 1986 race which I will never forget!
Well they could extract those figures yes but those max hp settings were actually rarely used fully, very often cars were tuned to near 500hp figures based on what I've heard. The more you extraxt of engines potential the less reliable it becomes. And rallies back then had even over 1000km of special stages so it was really very much about endurance, not just maximum speed. So they were always calculating how much they could extract to still have enough reliability to finish the rally. Also, even with 4wd you couldn't get all the power to ground in most surfaces and tyres also set a limit. Kankkunen once tested 205 T16 in Greece on uphill course with soft tyres using full power. Just 7 km into that test stage and tyres were totally gone... Group B cars btw did not reach peak power during the time those were used in rallies. It was in rallycross after 1986, 800hp+ in some cases because short few minute starts -> way less reliability needed.
Portuguese here- thanks for the shout out. we are actually rally crazy here. too bad there´s no more F1 tho. with the exceptions of the last two years haha
Wonderful video. It's awesome that our off-road motorsport today, especially desert racing, still has the spirt and feels of the immortal group b. When talking about these topics, people need to realise that motosport is dangerous even today. There's a reason Mercedes pulled out of racing for a crazy amount of years or that 50 something drivers have died in f1 since debut. I believe at the bottom line it makes it worth doing. As they say, the closer you are to death, the more you feel alive!
I'm not even into rally car racing, but I gotta say - this video was still super interesting and entertaining. I didn't know a thing about rally racing before watching this. So I learned quite a bit. If I ever was to get into racing it would be stuff like this that would be my focus. Super cool stuff that looks like it would be fun to be a part of. Thanks for making this video and sharing it with us! 👍 Have a good one and ✌️ out!
It's crazy that the co driver looked so calm, while the driver he was next to was dead. Everyone reacts differently to crisis, and he was probably in shock. I know that when I was sitting in the middle of a single cab Toyota pickup, with two friends on either side of me flipped over on a dirt road. The passenger to my right had his fingers hanging onto the doorframe, having them outside the vehicle. His fingers got all mangled, and the minute I saw them, I took off running down the road to reach the larger group of friends already at a campsite. Even though there were rudimentary cellphones, and I ran into a vehicle of friends headed to help during my run. All I could think to do was run to get help. I was 18 years old, and I remember shoveling cow dung at my moms friend's farm the following day, booze leaking from my pores. I was never happier to be shoveling excrement, and just to be alive.
Having been to Finnish wrc rally in the 90s was so much different from today. The barrier was a plastic safety tape and if you ventured out into the woods, there were huge gaps in where no barrier existed. Now every meter of the rally stages has guardrails or guards. You can only watch from specified zones. Going to a rally stage is not as fun anymore. Its too crowded and you see better from the TV. The special stages and the mechanics area is the only place worth it, at least with how expensive the entry fees are
Always wondered how much longer Group B would have lasted if they took action to fix it’s problems sooner
a year longer and it would have been replaced by group s
The idea was basically not to fix the problems, double down and effectively have people run LMP cars on dirt to be even more insane. Group S would have been really silly.
@Raspian Kiado and cars having basically no safety features
Then it would have been replaced by group S which would have been a disaster. LMP cars that are not based on road cars is a dream by executives who dont understand the fans and the car guys. Also a pipedream for the one or two team with the most money. It always ends in loss of intrest from the fans and teams jumping off cuz of higher dev cost to be competetive.
@@bennyb.1742 LMP on dirt 😄😄😄😄😄💀
Henri Toivonen in an interview just before the crash: ”This is crazy. We are driving in this rally more kilometres in a day than the whole Rally Sweden. It’s not about physical fatigue, but mental. Brains do not follow.” Those were his last words.
Holy shit
Every time someone dies in a race, they know it's coming.
Yep.. I've seen the interview... I've seen Henri Toivonen and hannu mikkola protest about the events being too long and not being able to maintain concentration.... in fact after Toivonen's death the events were finally shortened somewhat.
@@GFY127 Yes. Once again had to kill somebody first.
His last recorded words
One of the reasons I love group b, was that the drivers weren't rivals,well, not as much as other racing types, they all banded together to get their voices out and i find that incredible, that doesn't happen too often
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I think it happens because drivers don't see each other during racing as well, since they all focus on racing against nature more than to each other.
@@kaushikraikar1105 Yeah, but imo drivers should interact more with each other
Yeah, it was a time where driver's mostly partied and drank beer together. Less ego, more comradely
@@kaushikraikar1105 that sounds viable given that downhill mountain biking has the same "racing against nature" focus and has the same comradery. its unlikely that is a coincidence.
Rally in Portugal was insane. It was like the country stopped just for the races. My mother, the safest, calmest and most cautious person in the world, to this day says that her biggest dream is to be inside a rally car while it zooms through the road. That's how insane rally was in Portugal. One of my earliest ever memories, is being at a rally with my parents, them running just to get the perfect spot to show me the cars
group B objective:
1. win
2. alive (optionable)
God, watching those people stand so close to the track is absolutely bonkers
Yeah, you can't be much closer when you are on the actual track.
morons should've gotten wasted sooner
@@dansihvonen8218
Absolute madness. You'd see them facing down the cars sometimes too... what the hell?! I've seen cars have to slow down to avoid hitting Darwin hopefuls quite a few times over the years.
They're idiots
Could you imagine fans on the track at Road America?
Why would you guys call it bonkers and madness? Wouldn't it be more on the side of stupidity?
After Group B ended a lot of the cars were modified even further and became Rallycross monsters. I used to watch them testing at an aerodrome where I grew up and those things were shockingly fast
How those people can stand on a racetrack without worrying about the risks blows my mind
As you go through life you will find that quite a lot of humans are just plain stupid.
“Safety” in numbers
Y'all are just boring 🥱
@@potatojake197 boring?? 🤣 i just don’t wanna die lad
@@chrisdingley9277 That's a tad boring
I'm portuguese, and my father went to that Portugal race when he was a teenager. He was a few curves away from where the accident happened so he didn't see it, but he still remembers seeing heavily injured people, some missing legs, when he was leaving. Rally Group B was so crazy, it's even hard to believe that it was allowed in the first place.
They could have kept it going, all they needed to do was better spectator managment.
@@corail53no it's a good solution to overpopulation
It should still be around, but spectators have to ruin everything. How hard is it to see that a car is barrelling down the road towards you at over 110kmh? Get off and away from the fucking road.
Group B was fine. The issue was spectators being allowed on / near the track.
"Allowed?" People should be free to race. The fans on the sidelines were the idiots. Let them be idiots too.
This should be titled, _The Fans That Killed Their Own Race._
Honestly so sad to see, group B created some of the best cars ever. Would love to see it come back.
I mean, it pretty much is. Modern hybrid WRC is basically Group B from space.
@@bennyb.1742 no, very very far from the truth.
the only reason drivers are faster now is the batman preparation theory.
they keep the roads maintained and every team has an entire R&D department dedicated year around to helping these people get the best times .
group B drivers did it with a few low speed test runs and faith in their co driver.
@Raspian Kiado it really had nothing to do with the spectators.
since there was such lack in regulation, there was a lot of speculation that most teams would eventually cheat the few safety rules they had
nobody talks enough about the paper mache roll cages..
little bits of flimsy metal shouldnt be the only remnants of these cars.
like, a lot of the crashes you couldnt find the roll cages. just the thin strips used to keep the body mods on
i feel like it could be both, The cars, And the spectators.
If the cars were safer but the spectators were still messing with the drivers trying to trip them and sabotaging certain drivers, Something bad was bound to happen there at some point.
But same goes the other way around, If the cars didn't change, Something would probably still go horribly wrong due to the way they were even without spectators jumping in.
But that's just my 2 cents though.
@@The_One_Over_There Also any team could hypothetically pay someone to stand in front of a rivals car (whilst pretending to be a spectator)
Hey, man! I have been watching a few of your videos, and I have to say that I appreciate what you do for your viewers. I am 51 and used to race go-karts with the likes of Bryan Herta, one or two of the Pedregon brothers, and Page Jones, and a lot has happened since then. Of course, all of them went on to do bigger and better things, with the exception of Page Jones' life changing accident. Since those days, I haven't been involved much in the racing scene, but I have tried to keep up as best as I can, so watching your videos has been a little refreshing. It has brought back some memories, good and bad, but it is obvious that you do your homework before posting. Thank you for doing this. Again, it is refreshing to watch your videos, especially to see someone much younger than I am be so involved in doing what you do. Keep up the good work, brother!
Group B was incredible, I truly wish I would've been alive to witness it in person. I doubt there will ever be another motorsport quite like it.
True. A very unique page in motorsport!
there is a other motorsport much , much more dangerous of this and it's called TT man of isle check it out !!! those dudes are insane !
There’s Isle of Man tt
@@somebodysomeone3231 those dudes are next level. Absolute madmen
No matter how many videos I watch about Group B, I never get bored of it.
Great video!
crazy hardcore fans too! I remember a winner of Group B met a fan he actually hit and broke the fans leg!he apologized, and the fan got angry with him!he said "You won Group B, you dont apologize!" over 800 horsepower on a car Less than 800 kilos!dual turbo was a bit overkill!
for real i can watch audi quattro rally vids forever
Fans KILLED Group B standing in the most STUPID places trying to touch the cars as they passed Well Known Fact
Can confirm the crash of Joaquim Santos, one of the women i worked with on my first job is the daughter of one of Santos team meachanic and hearing her talk about it and how her father saw Santos still in shock after getting back to them was mind blowing.
I can also confirm that we Portuguese are crazy about motorsport, be it Rally, Rallycross, Hillclimb, F1 or MotoGP. If it has wheels and an engine, we go crazy over it
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@@Coop_De_La_Woop you don't get much love and attention at home, do you?
You Portuguese are just passionate people. It's in your DNA. 😁
@@ANSWERTHECALLOFJESUSCHRIST oh yeah, that's for sure. Once i got my license i got passionate about cars and then i got passionate about motorcycles and got my motorcycle license
@@Bjorgolf553 what did he say?
You are not the first UA-camr to do an analysis of Group B, but I most certainly enjoyed yours more. A Razor-sharp intellect coupled with a prodigious amount of hard-core research and spiced to perfection by being a good narrator. I think you've overtaken Hunter's Moon
Hunter's Moon is fantastic! Love his analysis and of course his deep voice!
I've seen it all, I thought, for Group B on UA-cam and beyond, but I still learned something new from this video :)
Somebody wants a thousand bucks!
@@albonfilms one of the most balanced voice ever.
I love both but Hunters Moon takes quite a while to upload tho
i absolutely love how you said exactly how it is. group B didnt have to go. they should have listened to the drivers and limited spectator contact and made safer cages.
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safer cages are heavier. and teams were already using cardboard for cages to pass inspections.
rally driving is inherently dangerous. that danger is magnified tenfold when you have large sponsorships like visa
@@0xsergy so are turbos but they were fine with throwing those on instead of developing better engines.
@@cerberus1166 turbod engines have the best powr to weight tho. You can only do so much with 14.8psi atmo pressure.
I saw this in Portugal as a teenager and I feel in love with rally. Portuguese spectators are insane!
I love watching videos of Group B races. They're just so raw and visceral compared to any of their counterparts.
I guess visceral is an appropriate choice of words after your car splatters 32 people's internal organs in a single crash
@@simplyskrypt3914 bloody hell
@@David-qw5vr yeah that too
Ever see the short film Climb Dance? It's glorious. Ari Vatanen's 1988 record-breaking run up Pike's Peak in a 4-wheel steering Peugot 405 Turbo 16 design for Group S... The editing is sublime.
@@simplyskrypt3914. That reminds me of some Le Mans accident
The memories I have from group B will for ever stay with me, I remember as a kid going to Sintra in Portugal 🇵🇹 with my family and see these monster cars and drivers on the narrow roads, the smells, noises and the roar of the crowds it’s too hard to describe. What a great thing it was but times change. Now to get close to this kind of experience only at the Isle of Man 🇮🇲 TT 😮
Portuguese here!
I was a teenager at that time. I enjoyed so much those competitions.
You were fortunate
I was born in 83.
By the time I realised it, Group B was over a long time ago.
The Isle is on a completely different level..
@Marco Santos my dad has been on TV at isle of man rally he drove the Cash for kids in 2008 I think
Even after these gruesome incidents group B still is and will continue being remembered with fondness for the legendary cars and drivers it had
Yup, the reason why i loved rally so much. Watching group B era of rally was mesmerizing not only because the cars were fast, but also that the drivers were so skilled that they could pull off crazy corners in such fast cars driving on dirt and gravel.
Nicely presented: good energy, interesting info, excellent lack of smarm. Cheers!
Much appreciated!
Only the 2nd video of yours I've seen as I only stumbled on your channel recently and you have a new subscriber. Even though I already know the content being covered it's great to see it being covered in a different way, by a passionate fan. Keep up the great work.
Rally fans haven't changed, I attended WRC Rally Croatia this year and I stood on a hill before a hairpin, a lot of people stood on the outside of a decently fast hairpin when the road was wet, a marshal came before the event started and told the people to go away but after the marshal left more and more people came back to the hairpin. There were like 30-50 people behind the guardrail of the hairpin
So the spectators are also the fucking issue
@@InstaMemesio the spectators are THEE main fucking issue. Sadly it doesn't matter, a group of people would get hit by a car and almost die, and they'll be right back next year standing in the same spot.
I also saw footage of a recent rally event where idiots were setting off rockets and fireworks on a fast right hander in the dark. I'd have the lot carted off and given a lifetime ban.
The 80s.... Crazy times but memorable ones. Those that saw those monster cars will never forget.
People standing ON the track were the real problem, according to Michelle Mouton. She now goes through the stages shooing people away from the track, especially on the outside of corners.
I love watching your videos. Thanks for the content.
Glad you like them! Thank you for watching!
My dad was at one of the group b races and told me about it. He said it gave him pure adrenaline being this close to the cars
Group B was so exciting to watch. Fans knew the risk.
They got what they wanted!
Exactly just don't bring your kids
@@stealtoe9036 😏
The fans didn't know the risk, that's the whole point.
"Fans" didn't know the chance that when pushing hard, the car might strike a rock or log on the apex and launch itself into 50 spectators too close by, or fall off a ditch in a power slide and catapult into a 'safe' space of families and amateur photographers. Those were the risks.
It was exciting, it was almost beyond belief, but it was the lack of crowd control that killed it.
Its not about the fans, its about the drivers, what if you kill a dude because he wanted to touch your car zooming past at 100 MPH?
I never knew anything about group B rally before this video! Albon, you made a great documentary!
Thank you very much!
Moving on to have the big drivers race with Group A cars was definitely the right choice, and Group B was just madness.
Yet three decades later, the Isle of Man TT continues to be way deadlier to drivers and spectators than Group B had ever been. Group B was far from the peak of racing insanity.
Group was the pinnacle of rally racing. It was the answer to the question" how far could we go in the ultimate pursuit of speed"?. There has never been anything like it before and after. But it came at a cost.
Hey, if people are dumb, they pay the price. I would have totally continued it.
@@Metalbringer92
I mostly care about the people in the cars, their safety and their mental health.
But yeah, they definitely should have mandated Mad-Max style grille guards, among other things.
@@Metalbringer92The drivers were complaining they couldn't keep up with these insane cars. Screw the spectator thing these cars were straight up deadly for the drivers.
@@stpbasss3773which sadly happened to Bettega and Toivonen. As well as 3 spectators.
@@stpbasss3773which sadly happened to Bettega and Toivonen. As well as 3 spectators.
You are a great story teller and I always find myself checking to see if you've uploaded. I've always wanted to know more about rally, so I appreciate you making this video
Man, looking at your image as you give the narrative, you are a relatively young man and certainly wasn't around during the group B era but boy, your research is superb, impeccable,accurate,and well done. I was around and witnessed it all, collected lots of material from the Teams at the time and I can tell you, you've nailed it spot on. Good job mate!
I would have loved to see a race just once. It looks primal.
You should go see a modern WRC Event. The top class cars are much faster than the group b cars.
@@Franko384 That's fair. I'm thinking of how it would be like seeing a movie in theaters instead of on DVD. Nothing beats seeing it in the fresh format.
@@Franko384 While they the modern WRC cars can indeed go much faster through a stage than group B cars, they lack the raw power and especially the imperfectness of group B cars, as the modern WRC cars are full with high tech stuff that makes it much easier to drive them than a Group B car, making the driving much more perfect and thus more boring (but safer!) than the wild action of Group B, where drivers constantly had to fight the car to stay on course.
@@realQuiGon 380 HP+ is definitely enough power. And don't forget about the ridicoulus 50 meter+ Jumps the new rally cars can take without shattering.
@@realQuiGon For me, the thing that sets group b apart from modern rally is the variety. Modern WRC Cars all sound similar and share a lot of components, while group b cars had very different approaches to their design phylosophy.
The modern WRC cars are less interesting but more exciting, if that makes sense.
I've been preparing my wheels for paint this last days and I have to say this was one of the best videos to watch while I work on my car. Keep it up
It was the most exciting but also the most tragic period of rallying.
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Great video as always
I am very humbled you think so! We just want to spread the love of cars 😊
Lmao that's sad, literal self report
It never gets old learning about Group B, you certainly made it even more interesting!
One thing to remember that the "Groups" were used in motorsport in general and not just rally. Group A actually competed in both rally and sports cars and Group B sport cars were also in the works from Porsche and Ferrari. It was only Group C that was purely sports prototypes which didn't get used in rally.
I bleeding love rallying. You covered Group B in a much better way than others.
The group B always felt like something out of this world, I was something that was meant to end. "An long joy ends in sorrow"...
Martin Schanche from Norway were probably the most crazy Group B driver from 1970's to 1990's, but still didn't drive in to any people.
Martin Tweaked his own engines, and is why he won many races.
Actually... he jkust used Group B car in Rallycross Division 2 category for many years but because he didn't drive one in any rally he cannot actually be referred as Group B driver. Better to just say he was the most crazy rallycross driver with any car he drove, in my opinion too 😅
The spectators were literally 'bullfighting' the cars, I say those that got caught up got what they were looking for.
Yeah but the mental toll it takes on the driver, who wants no part in that, must be insane. That's what pisses me off about letting spectators onto the tracks.
Always had a dubbel feeling about Group B. On the one hand you don't want anyone to get hurt but at the same time that extreme risk is what made Group B so awesome... also no one forced anyone to get behind the wheel or stand next to the course so thats also one way to look at it.
Well... the spectators part is sort of arguable, if the organisers are selling an unlimited number of tickets, far beyond the capacity of the course, it gets iffy. The drivers I totally agree with you, and I'm glad we still have IoM and just road racing in general in bikes.
@@zedballs And I would say on behalf of the drivers, if driving is your profession and your employer wanted to race Group B, you had to race group B
@@zedballs What do you mean selling tickets? Group B rally was free to watch live, hence the sea of people freaking out watching those monsters roaring through slim roads at break neck speed and power, the closest the better.
@@zedballs No one was selling tickets to rally back then.
I agree. This was all voluntary, everyone knew the risks. It should've gone on.
Very good video! Thank you and congrats from a Portuguese “small” rally driver!
That a legend. Actually giving credit to the youtube channel the particular clip is from...Thats respectful. Every channel needs to take notes
The Stratos will always be one of my favorite cars, even if it wasn't in Group B. It's like a little flying saucer for the dirt, with a cool over cabin wing
I just found this Channel today! Will share with my friends! This man is great, passionate historian! Truly I have learned so much from these videos and the editing is incredible! I can’t wait for the next video!!!😊
I was sad this video ended. Great video of the era! Thanks
I'm a sim racer and and even virtually, those cars are literal monsters! Keep up the good work.
group b is basically the hanatarash of rally racing
Group B was crazy and very dangerous, but it was awesome too! It has given us lots of iconic and spectacular images :)
But yeah, banning Group B was the right decision to make.
10:35 You forgot to mention there that one major reason for his death was the rollcage since after some investigation they found out that the roll cage was made out of paper which made the car very fragile
I saw an interview with röhrl recently and the way he described the lancia 037‘s roll cage was nothing short of terrifying. He said that you could see it flex when going over bumps and knew all along that a crash meant certain death. its crazy that they raced these things under rally conditions.
Don't be ridiculous. The cars were scrutinized before each rally at minimum.
Rohrl said that the 037 was the best handling, most precise rally car he ever drove. A rigid chassis is the foundation of a good handling rally car. The 037 was strong enough to win the brutal Acropolis Rally and to finish in high positions in the Safari.
CONGRATS ON 200K!!!
Every video of group B gives a kind of the same info, but every group B video tickles me to watch them 20 times
Imagine if group B was still around today. Wonder how it would be like
Insane. That’s the only answer. Imagine what we could do with things like Vtec and more advance turbos. Along with the wider use of carbon fiber parts it would just be insane.
Pikes Peak's race is quite close concerning car regulations, too bad they paved the road because of some eco lunatics
Your videos are true tutorials of the automotive and racing history!!
Keep on the great job you're doing!
Nice video, I was always in awe seeing the Group B going through forests and mountains so insanely quick
This era of rallying was just crazy. But it remains in every petrolhead's heart❤
Current WRC cars are now 5 seconds a mile quicker than group B that is to be expected. Spectator accidents are now very rare because crowd control is now marshalled properly. The biggest issue with Group B was the difficulty driving them, they were hard work. Don't forget and this is notable, Santos who went off in the RS200 in Portugal was an average driver with a wealthy team owner, he went from a 240 hp BDA mk2 escort to a 430 hp RS200 overnight. By the way the E2 S1 quattro was officially quoted at 444 hp but it was always the most powerful at 550 hp for the Monte and Portugal in 1986. Good video with some slightly embellished data. Ex DSM employee
And group b were manuals with clutch, today we have sequential transmission, clutch only used for launch at start
I have seen so many people talking about the glorious group B rally. This version of this group B rally is new. How FIA ignored drivers and team's plea for better conditions for rallying. Thanks albon
Group B was probably the best rally, paired with fast jumps and no horsepower limit, it could of been long-lasting if they could fix their problems after the first crash.
OMG finally a saab 96 in the video and a saab 99 THANK YOU i love you put them in!
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@@Andrew9565-AD yup... Got the same thing going on here... Tipo some printscreens
the first time i saw group b i feel in love with it
8:58 "Team mechanics would often see cars come back with blood stains, torn hair caught in the body panels and sometimes.... Even fingers."
Group B will forever be remembered as one of the most exciting motorsports!
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Bought a steering wheel to play rally games coz it looks cool in those great Dirt videos. I quit on the first corner lol.
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Why the hell they never learn anything from the Le Mans tragedy. Putting spectator like that is a guarantee for gruesome accident
I worked service for a friend of mine at the last Group B rally, the 1986 Olympus Rally in Tacoma Washington. But my buddy wasn't even close to a Group B driver, his car of choice was a SAAB 96 which was reaching the end of its eligibility. So the last Group B rally was also the last WRC rally for the venerable SAAB 96! Unfortunately my friend's car gave out about half-way through, regulating us to spectators. We were well aware of what had happened earlier in the year and took some precautions (made easier by the small crowds compared to Europe) but in retrospect in a couple of cases maybe not enough (though I was standing next to Steve Millen at one point so it's not like we were clueless newbies compared to everyone else, that's just the way it was. It did make for some good memories and some inside access as since we were part of the rally we had access to the drivers and other team workers that we would not have had otherwise. I also spectated at the '87 and '80 Olympus WRC rallies but they weren't the same as that 1986 race which I will never forget!
Audi s1 had over 600hp, like lancia delta s4.
Well they could extract those figures yes but those max hp settings were actually rarely used fully, very often cars were tuned to near 500hp figures based on what I've heard.
The more you extraxt of engines potential the less reliable it becomes. And rallies back then had even over 1000km of special stages so it was really very much about endurance, not just maximum speed. So they were always calculating how much they could extract to still have enough reliability to finish the rally.
Also, even with 4wd you couldn't get all the power to ground in most surfaces and tyres also set a limit. Kankkunen once tested 205 T16 in Greece on uphill course with soft tyres using full power. Just 7 km into that test stage and tyres were totally gone...
Group B cars btw did not reach peak power during the time those were used in rallies. It was in rallycross after 1986, 800hp+ in some cases because short few minute starts -> way less reliability needed.
As far as I am concerned if anyone dies as a result of getting in front of a race car, that is natural selection at it's finest.
People had no problem standing on an active race course, seeing all the people running out the way is crazy
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This was a great mini doc. Thanks dude!
Exceptional work in narrating Group B history! Well done!!
Another fantastic production Albon! Great work, thank you.
group b rally car is probably the coolest thing to drive around in the gravel patches and beaches of Italy.
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Awesome cars, drivers & noise.. The greatest era of Motorsport.
I will never forget those times..
Human Safety Rule 101 : Nothing changes until enough people have died to justify a change
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Portuguese here- thanks for the shout out. we are actually rally crazy here. too bad there´s no more F1 tho. with the exceptions of the last two years haha
I was there when the accident took place in Portugal - the place was so packed that there were even people standing on the trees…
Wonderful video. It's awesome that our off-road motorsport today, especially desert racing, still has the spirt and feels of the immortal group b.
When talking about these topics, people need to realise that motosport is dangerous even today. There's a reason Mercedes pulled out of racing for a crazy amount of years or that 50 something drivers have died in f1 since debut.
I believe at the bottom line it makes it worth doing. As they say, the closer you are to death, the more you feel alive!
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Spectators that were killed received Darwin Awards.
I’m old enough to remember watching Group B as a kid on tv. Not watched Rally since 97/98
R.I.P Henri Toivonen ,my childhood Hero..!
I'm not even into rally car racing, but I gotta say - this video was still super interesting and entertaining. I didn't know a thing about rally racing before watching this. So I learned quite a bit. If I ever was to get into racing it would be stuff like this that would be my focus. Super cool stuff that looks like it would be fun to be a part of. Thanks for making this video and sharing it with us! 👍 Have a good one and ✌️ out!
It's crazy that the co driver looked so calm, while the driver he was next to was dead. Everyone reacts differently to crisis, and he was probably in shock.
I know that when I was sitting in the middle of a single cab Toyota pickup, with two friends on either side of me flipped over on a dirt road. The passenger to my right had his fingers hanging onto the doorframe, having them outside the vehicle. His fingers got all mangled, and the minute I saw them, I took off running down the road to reach the larger group of friends already at a campsite. Even though there were rudimentary cellphones, and I ran into a vehicle of friends headed to help during my run. All I could think to do was run to get help.
I was 18 years old, and I remember shoveling cow dung at my moms friend's farm the following day, booze leaking from my pores. I was never happier to be shoveling excrement, and just to be alive.
Having been to Finnish wrc rally in the 90s was so much different from today. The barrier was a plastic safety tape and if you ventured out into the woods, there were huge gaps in where no barrier existed. Now every meter of the rally stages has guardrails or guards. You can only watch from specified zones. Going to a rally stage is not as fun anymore. Its too crowded and you see better from the TV. The special stages and the mechanics area is the only place worth it, at least with how expensive the entry fees are
So in Finland every little boys biggest Idol was Henri Toivonen and it IS just a moment when whole country went silent
Nothing quite feels like starting up DR2.0, picking any stage and using a Group B car on it. Absolute monsters.
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Who would willingly stand on the track
Remember watching Group B VHS tapes with my mom, good times
Great video, I love the group B cars. Cool to see some deeper history about them.
Im amazed how many times this subject has been redone must be the 8th group b docu ive seen aha
Awesome storytelling, Albon!! That video was over in a blink of an eye!!
I still remember the mastermind of Lancia behind them fighting the legendary audi Quattro's. Incredible stuff.
WRC championship is why I purchased an Audi Quarto, and I loved that car and still do. It truly was a time of win on Sunday sell on Monday.