Barnaby

Autocar this week has a set of stories by Rally drivers of their biggest rally and road crashes. Best drivers in the World and listen to how humble they are on the road....

Tommi Makinen:

"My worst road crash was also in 1997 after the Catalunya rally. I went to do some gravel testing. I flew to Barcelona and rented a car. It was in the evening and I was a bit tired. There was a lot of traffic. I tried to muscle my way through it all and suddenly there was a big Mercedes in front of me. It was too late. I hit it quite hard and my rental car ended up half-a-metre shorter. The guy jumped out and said 'Ah, Mr Makinen, hello!'. He was a bull-fighter apparently"

Richard Burns:

"My biggest road crash was in '92. I was doing a recce for that year's RAC. It was the end of the day. I had dropped off the recce car and was driving a borrowed Peugot 205 GTi. It had big carbs and went like an absolute rocket. Anyway, the power cut in like turning on a switch and I spun it on a quick corner, rolled three times and ended up on the roof. I had my head between my legs and my hands were trapped between my head and the roof. Eventually I had to fall out of the car via a side window."

Blimey, they're human after all!

Dracoro

They may be human, but surely a modern rally driver knows that the 205 gti is an injection model
Sounds fishy.

Barnaby

I thought people used to take off the fuel injection and put on twin-choke carbs to get performance up?

[Edited by Barnaby - 11/13/2002 12:23:47 PM]

Dream Weaver

Defo not fishy - you could make the 1.9 205 into a rocket ship by adding 45 carbs or a throttle kit

Supposed to sound like a quick bike when you do as well - screamer

chiark

Funny innit, both of them were at the end of the day, one says they were tired and the other implies it.

There's probably a valuable lesson there

Brendan Hughes

Hey guys! Roll your Scoob on the public road, and you too could be paid great money driving for the SWRT ten years later!