Rally Discussion and Bar Talk Thread

**AnttiL** · 25th April 2020, 15:55

Originally Posted by Fast Eddie WRC

Fascinating interview with Derek Dauncey of Mitsubishi on the Safari Rally in 1996. Amazing in every way compared to modern WRC.

(Plus the Hong-Kong - Beijing Rally and eating rat in their Wuhan hotel !!)

https://www.dirtfish.com/archive/pod...his-wrc-heyday

I would estimate the Safari budget in those days was as much as a full WRC season today with separately built cars, helicopters, testing for many months on location, specialist drivers, chase cars, 3000 km route etc. And some people still think Safari should have been run like that this year!

**Berke** · 5th May 2020, 20:48

Didn't see that coming! https://www.wrc.com/en/news/season-2...eatest-driver/

**dimviii** · 6th May 2020, 09:02

Official Motor Sport World Ke
@MotorsportWKe
·
26m
Yoshio Fujimoto 1995 Safari Winner. Spent five months in Kenya focused only on winning the Safari.He drove the 3000km-long course eight times & memorized it by heart. Rolled the car and still somehow managed to win the event.Luck strikes when you least expect it.

**dimviii** · 7th May 2020, 08:50

The World Rally Championship is full of anecdotes. Many of them remain practically in the memory of a few who were able to experience them from within, and others, fortunately, end up coming to light over the years. In the middle of the YouTube and information through the networks era, we find a perfect platform for the dissemination of the same to the general public and media such as the Goodwood channel have become an unmissable source to know everything these kinds of details. Among them, we can see things as curious as the one we bring you today: Why did the Lancia Delta Integrale carry a machete when they competed in the nineties?

The story comes from the hand of Stefano Macaluso and his private collection. In the middle of more rural Torino there are facilities where up to 35 competition cars can be found, including the Ligier JS11 with which Jaques Laffite competed, a Ferrari F40, a Lancia 037, an Audi Quattro Gr.4, a Lancia LC1, a Fiat X1 / 9, and even one of the Toyota Celica GT-Four Gr.A used by Carlos Sainz and Luis Moya, decorated in this case with the same image with which the Spanish duo was crowned World Champions for the first time in Great Britain, but if we look at the registration records it would be the one used by the couple in New Zealand.

Although now the collection has passed into Stefano's hands, the secret for so many jewels to be gathered is that its original owner was none other than Gino Macaluso, the former official Abarth / FIAT pilot, European Rally Champion in 1972, which would later also go to management positions within the ACI, later becoming president of the Italian Federation. He even formed his own team already in the 21st century within the JWRC, which explains why the unmistakable Fiat Punto Rally S1600 used by Andrea Dallavilla is among the collection.

The story of the machetes in the Safari Rally:

However, among the most curious things within the collection you can find a Lancia Delta Integrale with Safari specifications that was used by Juha Kankkunen and Juha Piironen to finish second in the 1992 edition. The car, which was purchased directly from Lancia it had to be restored, changing the roof for a new one since the original unit used by the four-time World Champion had overturned during the African test, so Macaluso asked to replace the original upper part, which remains in one place from the family workshop as a souvenir.

The most anecdotal is inside, since as we all know, competing in the Safari Rally was an adventure completely unrelated to the development of the rest of the World Cup. Pilots and co-pilots could compete in a jersey, without the top of the suit being fireproof due to the high temperatures that occurred within the cabin. In the sky they were accompanied by a helicopter that warned them of possible encounters with wildlife, something that was trained before competing so that there was perfect communication between the pilots and the team spotter that watched them from the air along with the experienced pilots who had to avoid frightening the animal and that it gets further into the section. All this was special, including the equipment, reinforcements, additional lights, protection tubes, snorkel for admission and other elements that were used exceptionally to run on the Safari.

Among all those extra kilos we sometimes found completely bizarre pieces when we talked about a rally car, and among them the machete that stars in this article, after all, a tool that could be used to cut small bushes or vegetation in case highway exit. We must remember that it was very difficult to find fans in the Safari, so on many occasions the competitors had to wait a long time in case they got stuck at some point, so it could also serve as protection against attacks by wild animals at worst of the cases. A few years earlier, Pat Moss, sister of Sir Stirling Moss and rally driver, also recognized that she had a panga in her car as a deterrent to possible thefts from local gangs and that on some occasions she came to fear seeing shiny things wielded by some people from the villages that finally turned out to be only pieces of aluminum ripped from other cars that they had also abandoned.

Undoubtedly, it becomes another of that characteristic equipment that can only be found in certain specific appointments, such as the famous snow shovels that they carry in Sweden to dig when they get caught in the snow or the caps to close the air flow in appointments with very low temperatures, such as the Scandinavian rally itself or in Wales.
https://www.diariomotor.com/competic...turo-dtm-2021/