You couldn’t make this up. Incredible faith in his car after rolling it on stage two. Grist as the co driver equally awesome

Oh lovely, will watch that later thanks

A car with an illegal engine mod giving it 50bhp more is faster than legal rivals. Cheat, cheat, cheat and Toyota were stripped of the wins, and banned for 95.

https://www.themechanists.com/2019/03/11/a-cheat-so-brilliant-it-was-applauded-by-rule-makers/

Phawww, great video! 😆 thanks for sharing I haven’t watched rallying for a long while now. That’s got me interested in it again! Might have to watch it again with headphones. The sound of that engine was crazy.

Some great quotes from that too

Reporter: “do you have bad luck or make mistakes”

Juha: “well if you ask my wife, she says I make a lot mistakes when I’m home”

😂

I have a claim to fame..ish From this era, I once showed Tommi makinen how to use a microwave to cook a pie in a Mid Wales petrol station during the Rac Rally. Bowyers chicken and ham if your interested 😂

A car with an illegal engine mod giving it 50bhp more is faster than legal rivals.

That was entirely on the team, not the drivers. That fightback was pretty incredible, regardless of the illegal engine.

Nice one,some fantastic driving.

Some great quotes from that too

“So now just having fun?”
“can’t do nothing much,just go flat out”
🙂

That fightback was pretty incredible, regardless of the illegal engine.

Really? Pretty easy to “fight back” when you have a faster car than anyone else. For all we know there were drivers driving a hell of a lot better than Juha but with 50bhp less so there times weren’t as good.

The sound of that engine was crazy.

…now the sound of Fiesta ST’s at a McDonalds near you! 🙂

Everyone loves a pops and bangs re-map!

Must go down as one of the most “innovative” cheats of all times though. 😊

Ferrari’s 2019 engine cheat was so good they had to do a secret deal with the FIA so no info about it could get out!

“Car looks like a bag of crisps” 😀

There is a BRILLIANT podcast from Chris Harris when he interviews Nicky Grist. It’s about 3 hours long but is honestly one of my favourite ever podcasts. Listened to it over a period of a few dog walks

I’ve not heard that podcast, just lined it up, looking forward to it. And there’s a new Binky this week too!

Turbogate was the year after that video with a different car.

Anyone spot Hannu Mikkola spectating? (Stripy polo shirt)
Back around that time my father took part in the RAC Rally, with me doing service crew.We had built a Ford Fiesta to group N spec and ran it on a shoestring. The year we did it, the start was in Harrogate. There were set times for presenting the car for scruitineering and as spectators were allowed in, they also spread out the star drivers through the day. It turned out that our time slot coincided with Juha Kankkunen, he spent loads of time chatting to us, looking at the car and comparing notes. Turned out that our entire budget for the event was about the same as Toyota spent on 1 set of tyres. I also met Max Moseley as he was head of the FIA at the time, struck me as a bit creepy.

mcmoonter
Free Member

You couldn’t make this up. Incredible faith in his car after rolling it on stage two. Grist as the co driver equally awesome

Saw that pop up on my YouTube feed last night, watched it and had forgotten how noisy the anti lag was 🙂

Must go down as one of the most “innovative” cheats of all times though.

That was the one where they had a turbo restrictor that looked like a solid machined piece, but could be opened out with a special tool and locked by clamping the hose on it and would snap back as soon as the hose clamp was released, right? So, unless the scrutineers knew exactly what to look for, it was nearly impossible to detect.

What I’ve always wondered about was, how many people knew? (Same goes for the Ferrari cheat.) Obviously, the engine designers sat down and deliberately designed it and there must have been one or two mechanics who were trained how to install it. Problem is, all the other mechanics must have known that some special protocol was triggered anytime that one hose clamp needed attention, so everyone in the garage must have known that something was going on. On top of that, the turbo would have been oversized and the dyno numbers must have been suspicious, so even engineers who didn’t know exactly what the trick was must have known something was wrong.

Which is the same as the Ferrari cheat. There must have been a bunch of people who knew that the numbers didn’t add up and it only takes one disgruntled employee to tell the scrutineers exactly where to look.

how the restrictor “worked” was quite ingenious as my understanding it was operated purely by the tightening of the hoseclamp on the intake pipe, which compressed the belleview washers & opened the bypass,

in regards to the Op’s video, that was the earlier ST185 which wasnt part of the restrictor gate scandal, it was the later ST205 that recieved the performance boost,

Strangely enough I was at the till behind Didier Auriol in my local diy shop this afternoon. He was driving an Audi A5.

Will look forward to watching that, thank you – only ever a casual rally fan, but an impulse lockdown purchase of Dirt 2.0 has piqued my interest. 🙂

A car with an illegal engine mod giving it 50bhp more is faster than legal rivals. Cheat, cheat, cheat and Toyota were stripped of the wins, and banned for 95.

Turbogate was the year after that video with a different car.

Is it painful to fall from so high a horse?

Strangely enough I was at the till behind Didier Auriol in my local diy shop this afternoon. He was driving an Audi A5.

I would love – absolutely love – if that’s true. 🙂

Nobody outside the people who were doing it knows when Toyota first started using the cheat. We only know when they got caught.

So I’m sill sat firmly in my saddle.

We still don’t know when Armstrong started doping, all we know is that he first tested positive for cortisone in the Tour 1999 shortly after the testing technique was developped.

No, that’s fine – contrition was not expected.

the-muffin-man
Full Member

Ferrari’s 2019 engine cheat was so good they had to do a secret deal with the FIA so no info about it could get out!

The one that put in fuel in between when the sensor took readings? This was way beyond that, the thing physically changed between scrutineering and stage running. Much better than someone being clever with a laptop

@ Pondo , 100% true . We live in same town . Millau south of France . He started as an ambulance driver .
I ride past his house regularly , he has a huge garage with lots of his old race cars , including the Toyota the year he became World champion . they gave it to him .
his son is a fighter jet pilot and his daughter a dancer in New York .
very simple and down to earth man .

Supercool! 🙂 Remember seeing some onboard footage of him on a test stage in the Integrale, he’s been a favourite of mine since then. Tell him bonjour from this anonymous fan next time you bump onto him! 🙂

Edit: It’s clearly a measure of his driving ability that he could manoeuvre an A5 round a DIY shop… 🙂

I like the boost tank on the focus wrc car,

The info about the boost tank is almost correct, but the hose wasn,t titanium just flexible hose running down inside the A pillar and into the sill , then the tank.
The pic with the tank in the back of the car wasnt for storage or transportation, once the FIA said the sytem would be outlawed for next event, the spare tanks were fitted into the back of the cars so the cars then had 2 tanks and twice the storage capacity.

Juha Kankkunen

A hero of mine in the Group B Peugeot 205 T16 and the coolest name ever!

Great watch, I miss the group B’s nothing like the sound of a 6R4 echoing through the forrests .

cool — one of my MTB ride mates is a good rally driver, still dabbles (I think); his co-driver was Nicky Grist for a season or two in the late 80s.

One of my greatest memories of the RAC was pulling into a petrol station after watching Stig Blomquist (Ford Sierra XR 4×4) and Per Eklund (Audi Quattro) fight to the proverbial death in a Lakes Stage. Think it was the last stage before a long drive back to the finish at Chester.

To my absolute jaw dropping amazement…Per and Stig are filling up at the pumps and chatting to each other across the forecourt. I was totally star struck and……they were SPEAKING to each other! 🤣🤣🤣

Per showed me round the car which was literally falling to bits at the welds having been thrashed around numerous international rallies. Down to earth didn’t do it justice. What a star.

One of those moments you never forget!😁

*Per won on the road BUT his intake manifold was aftermarket and out of spec to Audi’s original dimensions so Stig was promoted and won.