Lancia Delta - My Rallying Love Affair

Many years ago, I was a volunteer marshall for a number of rallying events. Marshalls are the unsung motor racing heroes, especially in Rallying where you are up all night, in freezing cold and often in the middle of a dark forest.

In my case, that forest would be Dalby forest in North Yorkshire and later on, a couple of times in; well, some unknown but equally as cold, damp and miserable forest in the Lake District as well as a trip up to the Isle of Mull as part of privately entered Skoda team in the Isle of Mull Rally which was driven by a mate at work. He crashed on Stage 2 and we spent the following 4 days getting pissed with the sheep, but that's another story!

Now in the '80s and early '90s, there were three kinds of Rally car. The Lancia Delta, the most mechanical thing I have ever loved, The Audi Quattro and then there were the rest! The Group B cars, the S4 was short-lived, the cars became too fast, people were killed and Group B was dropped in 1987, but the Delta lived on in its Group A form. Audi had no suitable replacement for its Group B Quattro and so dropped out and so the Sierra Cosworths, Mazda 323s and BMW M3s entered the fray to take up the challenge but ultimately, they were no match for the Lancia. Not until the end of the '80s with the introduction of the Toyota Celica ST165 did any serious competition for Lancia's dominance return to the WRC.

Rallying was exciting and I much preferred it to circuit racing, right up until the end of Lancia's reign in 1992 when my affiliation turned to Touring cars. Rally cars had been glamorous and outrageous, the noise and the smell indescribable as they flashed past us poor, whistle blowing, freezing souls in the forest. (The days when whistle-blowing meant blowing a whistle and not 'grassing someone up' as it does today!).

Between 1987 and 1992, the Deltas won six constructors titles, two driver's World titles each for drivers Juha Kankunen and Miki Biasian and a total of 46 outright victories in WRC rounds. An incredible feat.

The reason this came up is I came across an article here about a sale at Silverstone race circuit in the UK where an original Kankkunen car sold for a not too shabby $297,530 (£225,000), almost double its estimate. What I would give for a real slice of Motor racing history and the sexiest motor car created by man. Low mileage and one careful owner.....well, half of that is true I guess!!

How many Steem is that?

Oh, and why did I go into the forest in the middle of the night at my own expense to get cold, wet and almost killed by some crazy Finnish Rally drivers?

Because to get to your assigned point on the stage, you drove there in your car. I actually had a Lancia at the time, a Delta Symbol, I couldn't afford the road going Turbo, but for those few short miles, to get where I would stand for hours with my whistle meant I could drive on a private road, through the forest, in my own car, like a demented banshee!! I drove part of the course, just like the rally drivers did, and that experience, was priceless!!

@nathen007

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