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Thread: Walter Rohrl at Work

  1. #1
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    Walter Rohrl at Work

    A couple of decades ago...

    http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/video.php?illustration=55

    Amazing footwork & car control - wacky spectators.

    Jim
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  2. #2
    Moderator Chuck Miller's Avatar
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    Thumbs up

    GREAT video.... and really good music... thanks

    Cheers,
    Chuck Miller
    Creative Advisor/Message Board Moderator - Early 911S Registry #109
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  3. #3
    I just wish they hadn't fast-forwarded it

  4. #4
    Jared Rundell - Registered User JCR's Avatar
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    Great stuff, the man is the master! Can you imagine watching this kind of footage in high-def on a big screen with all the good sounds in Dolby Pro Logic?? Maybe someday!!
    Jared
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  5. #5
    Senior Member Homemade 911's Avatar
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    Now, dem's some happy feet...

    But I hafta say; those spectators are nuggin futz...
    I'd be up on a hill - heavily mined with large rocks...

    great video!

    cheers
    Thom Kuby

  6. #6
    GREAT!

    Gruppe B was crazy..
    Randy Wells
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  7. #7
    Senior Member CurtEgerer's Avatar
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    Toivonen's fatal crash was effectively the end of Gruppe B rallying. This is footage of Henri's fatal run (Lancia Delta S4 turbo + supercharged). Not sure if it's the camera position or what, but it really shows how close to the edge of disaster every turn was .... Toivonen was generally considered by his peers (including Rohrl) as the fastest of the fast, mainly due to the fact that his regard for self-preservation was significantly lower than most humans. Gruppe B had really become, by that time, only a game of who was the craziest. The 2nd link is amateur footage picking up where the first one blanks out and is of Henri's unfortunate leap off the cliff.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkLH56Jx6qI&eurl=

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb3fSlE2jdI&eurl=

  8. #8
    Senior Member Jim Garfield's Avatar
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    Curt, I've seen that first video before and something about the "in car" footage struck me as being strange. I watched it a couple more times and it came to me, the car never leaves the right lane! Certainly not the way that Toivonen is driving in the shots from out of the car. I think that the video was shot from a sunroof on the same stretch of road that Toivenen had his accident and speeded up to approximate the pace they thought he would have been going.

    What an intense couple of seasons when those Group B cars were under development, it reminds me of the Can Am years. And Toivonen's career reminds me of that aphorism * The candle that burns brightest burns shortest *. Toivonen, Jimmy Clark, Ronnie Peterson, Gilles ....makes one wonder what the rest of their careers would have brought.

    I read an interview with Rohrl recently and he said looking back on those Group B days he is ashamed about the speed they were going relative to the proximity of the fans. But at the time it seemed completely normal and that he loved the cars capabilities and was thoroughly pissed off when they pulled the plug after Toivonen's death.
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  9. #9
    Senior Member CurtEgerer's Avatar
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    Ya know, I noticed that too - why would he stay in the right lane all the way around?

    Too bad we don't have another CanAm-like or Gruppe B-like series going today! Maybe with some of the alternative-fuel cars coming along we'll see something similar. I think I read something about a hydrogen-fuel race somewhere (was it at Indy???). Anyway, the rules are pretty basic:

    Rule 1: use hydrogen fuel
    Rule 2: see Rule 1

    I like those sort of specs.

  10. #10
    Senior Member Jim Garfield's Avatar
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    Yeah it's interesting, I've thought a lot about what is it that make a racing formula memorable. Why do people have fond recollections of certain series while others are forgotten almost immediately? I think that in almost all of the classics there was at least something that was unregulated and that led to great innovation. Sort of the antitheses of the Grand Am.

    Looking back through the years I think that arguably the best formula ever devised were the regulations that came in to effect in 1933, the 750-kilogram international Grand Prix formula. Talk about a radical idea, this set the maximum weight of the cars at 1,650 pounds but put no restriction on engine power or design features. What an incentive for innovation, and although Mercedes and Auto Union dominated this formula I think that it was more a lack of funding and commitment with the competitors and the uneasiness with the political situation that led to it's demise.

    I think that a little more Formula Libre would be a heathly, or at least more interesting, course of action in most series these days. Vintage excepted.
    '74 leichtbau
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