Back in my misspent youth, as I've mentioned before, I was peripherally involved in the sport of rally driving. I was never a major competitor, of course; strictly an enthusiastic amateur, driving a lightly modified second-generation Ford Escort in regional rallies in South Africa. These cars weren't the 'works' rally Escorts, which won several world championships during the late 1970's; they were merely ordinary 'civilian' Escorts with a few home-brewed modifications such as better suspension, tires, exhausts, etc.
I haven't been able to find much footage of 'amateur' rally Escorts like those I used to drive. However, there's footage of the 'works' professional rally Escorts, which gives you some idea of what they looked like. They had much more power than our vehicles, which gave them much better performance, but we used to throw ours around just as enthusiastically (albeit often less successfully) as the 'works' drivers. (African scenery was usually less green, and the roads less muddy and more dusty, than those shown in this clip. Rear-wheel-drive in a lot of loose dust and gravel could produce some spectacular 'wiggles' during a turn!)
Aaahhh . . . memories!
Peter
4 comments:
Ah, controlled wrecks.
Hey Peter;
I remembered those escorts in Germany in the mid 80's. Those were actually pretty good cars, far better than the locally produced cars during the same time period.
In which region and in what years did you do your rallying? I did Natal regional and club events between about 1969 and 1976.
Did you know a gentleman called Stuart Pegg? He would have been rallying in S Africa about that time.
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