25 replies to this topic

[dmj]

Discusing possible ideas for future articles with my editor I started thinking about rally cheating and immediately remembered a few good ones:
- homologation specials never built in required numbers (quite a few of those)
- Monte Carlo 1966 (should I say more?)
- Toyota's exclusion from WRC for using bigger turbos
- rumours of additional fuel tanks in roll cage of Lancia Delta S4 (was it ever officially confirmed? do I recall it correct?)
- stolen Vatanen's car at Paris-Dakar 1988 (was it ever uncovered who did it?)

Add to that a nice feature at C&SC, May 1997, with quite a few interesting stories, favorite being that about Ken Wharton at Tulip rally 1949, and there is already plenty of ideas I could develop my article from. But I'm willing to accept new ideas and if you have any reminescences worth noting, it will be much appreciated.

Disclaimer: In light of several discussions held here lately I'd like to point once again that this question is aimed to raise ideas and details I might wish to include in a short magazine article, so if anyone would feel cheated by publishing something I'll find about from him/her please let me know in advance about restrictions or not post it at all.

Thank you in advance,
Dino

[MCH]

Toyota wasn't excluded for running bigger turbos but because they bypassed the airrestrictors ;)

[petefenelon]

The old Datsun/Nissan straight sixes apparently used to run significantly over-sized in some rallies - to hide it they used to lift the heads and stuff a couple of piston crowns into the bores that were at BDC.

I think they were rumbled, eventually. ISTR seeing Andy Dawson tell that story...

pete

[dbalban]

I don't know whether Subaru ran a WRC event with the system but it certainly was tested: They ran with a compressed air system that was tapped into the intake side of the engine between the restrictor and engine (somehow there was a loophole which "allowed" it). The compressed air was supplied from a largish pressurised cylinder inside the car and was forced through the intake giving a pretty large power boost. As I said, I know the system was tested as this system was discussed for running on a Formula Student car I was working on.

[dbalban]

Another one maybe.. Peugeot running an illegal material on their water pump turbine vanes thus resulting in them loosing a win on the WRC recently.

[GeoffR]

Toyota wasn't excluded for running bigger turbos but because they bypassed the airrestrictors

Toyota were really very sophisticated with this - see the link below:
http://freespace.vir...com/tte_ban.htm

[David Birchall]

Originally posted by petefenelon
The old Datsun/Nissan straight sixes apparently used to run significantly over-sized in some rallies - to hide it they used to lift the heads and stuff a couple of piston crowns into the bores that were at BDC.

I think they were rumbled, eventually. ISTR seeing Andy Dawson tell that story...

pete

Can we have a fuller description of that Pete? It sounds intriguing, especially since I now have a Datsun rally car

[Henri Greuter]

I've heard about multiple exhaust tubing changes on the Lancia 037 Rallye 's in between the special stages, funny enough the heavy ones always used when a weight control was coming up or suspected....


Henri Greuter

[Darren Galpin]

On one of the rallies in the late '60s, there was a short-cut you could take across a valley, which was how Makinen in a Mini beat Elford in a Porsche despite it being a power stage (can't remember the year off hand at the moment). Another year others tried the same thing, but there was a strategically placed car blocking the route.....

[BRG]

Short-cutting has always been a source of controversy – whether it is legal or not it depends on how the route is defined. Arguably, as long as you pass through all the points mentioned in the road book, you can choose what route to take. Sometimes this has been competitors taking advantage of slackness by the organisers.

Real cheating is comparatively rare of course, but rallying has always been the home of creative rule interpretation. It must be having all those bright co-drivers around, rather than just having braindead drivers as in racing! I seem to recall Chris Sclater once recounting how , when he ran a Ford Escort in Group 2 trim, they fitted a lot of illegal strengthening plates to the back axle to bolster it to Group 4 standards. He commented that, if he was in the running for a win or top placing, the service crew would simply chisel it all off again after the last stage. In fact, if you ever saw a car taking service after the last stage, you should always have been suspicious! There was probably a lot of that sort of thing going on. A similar instance was on the RAC Rally when I was helping out at the start at Wembley. The works Lancia Stratoses all failed the noise test, so returned to the service park, fitted better exhausts, retook and passed the test, then refitted the previous straight-through exhausts for the rally. All without any attempt to hide what they were doing.

A famous, although I think never actually proven, case of dodgy dealing was Audi on the Bandama (Cote d’Ivoire) Rally when many people thought that they swapped Mouton’s battered rally Quattro for one of the recce cars by transferring numbers and registration plates. I also remember, during one of the Tour of Britain events in the 1970s, seeing what seemed to be the works Ford Escort RS2000 of Ari Vatanen, complete with rally numbers on a trailer in London, even whilst Ari was still competing in it elsewhere in the country. I never understood what that was about – if it had been a car swap , it was a very blatant one!

[D-Type]

OT - Talking of car swapping: when they won the Monte Carlo Rally with the Mini-Cooper, BMC promptly took all the team cars and spares, painted on the appropriate number and distributed them to dealers around the country as the winning car! could the Vatinen Escort incident be somewhat similar?

[chofar]

I sometimes read on (French) magazines that the accident that cost Citroen the victory in The 1968 London-Sydney wasn't really an accident. I did a search one day on TNF for that matter but didn't find anything. I'm sure some people around here know more about that.

[RS2000]

More action at final service points than anywhere else! Radio conversations immediately before them could be interesting eg. "who's got the bits?" "which bits?" "you know, THE bits".
Trouble is there are so many examples and, where they were not caught, the problem now is the culprits bank balances are bigger than ours, so libel law works against us...

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by petefenelon
The old Datsun/Nissan straight sixes apparently used to run significantly over-sized in some rallies - to hide it they used to lift the heads and stuff a couple of piston crowns into the bores that were at BDC.

I think they were rumbled, eventually. ISTR seeing Andy Dawson tell that story...

pete

From memory, Datsuns finished second (Salonen) and fourth (Dawson) in the New Zealand rally one year - 1979? Someone protested, and Dawson, who was acting as team manager, refused to have the engine-size checked, reportedly on instructions from Japan. So the cars were disqualified.
I do believe the cars, entered as 2000cc, were closer to 2.4 litres ;)

[Patrick Italiano]

Originally posted by chofar
I sometimes read on (French) magazines that the accident that cost Citroen the victory in The 1968 London-Sydney wasn't really an accident. I did a search one day on TNF for that matter but didn't find anything. I'm sure some people around here know more about that.

No, sorry, I read recently an interview to Lucien Bianchi shortly after he recovered from that accident, and he dismissed such a scenario.

[chofar]

There were some affirmations that the car which collided the DS was commissionned by some bookmakers.
(I mean I only read that, I don't claim it's true and wish to know some part of the truth)

[RS2000]

Strengthened Escort axles were being rejected by International scrutineers right up to the last year of homologation, although an approved brace was homologated long before. Weren't the Datsun/Nissans 4 cylinder saloons then? (160J?). The 66 Monte Minis were, much later, admitted to have been "illlegal" as regards drive couplings - about the one thing the scrutineers did NOT check!
The alleged Audi substitution involved doors, bonnet and rear hatch, which between them carried all the rally plates/numbers, but most international events by then were marking shell, block and head with stamps.

[Rainer Nyberg]

I also remember the Bandama Audi car swapping affair. I think that a German magazine had sufficient evidence that a car swap had actually taken place.

Wasn't the Audi Sport team boss at the time (Roland Gumpert?) fired as a result?

[dmj]

Don't know that one but they did sack Walter Treser after Acropolis 1981, where Quattros were disqualified due to rubber flaps placed instead of inner headlights, opening at speed and letting more air into the engine bay. And some auxillary batteries as well, in the footwell.

[Rainer Nyberg]

My mistake, this is probably the occasion I was refering to...

[Milan Fistonic]

Originally posted by Rainer Nyberg
My mistake, this is probably the occasion I was refering to...

You are not mistaken Rainer. Gumpert did lose his job as a result of the Ivory Coast car swap.

Audi never admitted the switch and the Ivory Coast organisers declared themselves satisfied despite not quoting the chassis and engine numbers of the two cars.

But photographic evidence was published in Autosport (and other mags IIRC) clearly showing that a swap had taken place.

While Gumpert wasn't sacked immediately he left the rally team at the end of the season.

[Rainer Nyberg]

Well, what can I say...thanks Milan for clearing up my blurry memory...

My only defence is, that it happened almost 25 years ago...

[dmj]

Ken Wharton story, as in C&SC:

When trials expert, racing driver and Ford dealer Ken Wharton agreed to drive a sidevalve Anglia in the Tulip Rally of 1949, he knew that the old-fashioned car would struggle to be competitive even with a favourable handicap. Which was when he started to think deeply about the state of his car's preparation.
To win, a superb performance on the final driving test at Zandvoort would be essential. The test included acceleration, braking and a number of tight turns around pylons. Wharton "arranged" for the oil seal on one side of the rear axle to "fail" just before the test.
When he tackled the test, using the handbrake to try to lock the rear wheels, Ken later said he was astonished to find that leaking axle oil had smothered one brake, causing the Anglia to slew to one side. It always spun rapidly in one direction, and that just happened to be the correct manoeuvre Wharton needed. He looked as innocent as a new-born baby, and the organisers were powerless.

Now, that's creative engineering, I'd say...

But let's get back to that petrol-filled roll cage of Delta S4. Or to enigma who realy stole Vatanen's car...

[Mark A]

There is also the story in a few Mini books about the 1967 Italian Rally of the Flowers in San Remo.

Paddy Hopkirk was leading and broke a driveshaft towards the end of the final stage, he managed to finish only dropping down to 2nd and with a short tow got the mini over the 'last brow' before a 20km drive to the finish. The final service was close and the rolled in. If they had changed the shaft they would have lost the 2nd place they were now in, so the service car (4l Princess) pushed the mini the final 20km dropping back at a time control (faked slipping clutch on the downhill departure) and whenever there were any photographers around.
Dodgiest part was towards the end when they had to struggle through the San Remo traffic, and a final 60mph slingshot out the tunnel in front of hundreds of spectators.

[Rainer Nyberg]

Not cheating by a team, but a competing team, when both Triumph TR7 V8's were sabotaged prior to the 1978 Tour de Corse.

Apparently someone saw the Triumph's as a threat, so the gearbox drain plugs were loosened and fell off during the first stage, with obvious results...

[racer69]

Whether you'd call it cheating or not (perhaps cheating by the organisers)

Remember the 1986 San Remo, where the works Peugeot 205 T16s were disqualified on the third? day for illegal side skirts on the cars by the Italian scruiteneers. This of course allowed Alen to move up to third behind two other works Lancia's, with team orders allowing him through to win.

The next round was the RAC, and the Peugeot's passed in the same trim.


Anyone have the pics talked about earlier proving the Audi swap on the 1985 Ivory Coast. Michelle Mouton needed a top 3 result on that rally to keep her FISA A-seeding for 1986. That was the only reason Audi entered a car there (well, two including the #11 Chase Car), it was a rally they were pretty sure they could make the top 3.