My daughter did not initially believe me when I told her that, for a few years, people were so obsessed with Group B rally cars that they’d climb to the sides of roads just to get close enough to touch one, even at the risk of losing a finger.
Some of the photography from the era looks more like war paintings than anything having to do with sports. It’s as if, having gone through generations of bloody and mechanized warfare, Europeans in the ’80s settled for the next closest thing.
This all came up a couple of weeks ago when I was playing the game Art of Rally, which is a highly stylized recreation of the golden era of rally. We were driving through Finland or Japan or somewhere, and when you come to certain intersections, there are little eraser-shaped people who dodge in and out of the road. It seemed absurd to her, even though it was very real, as you can see in this video simply called “Rally Group B – Crazy Spectators.” This led me down a rabbit hole of watching rally videos with her.
I got the top photo from the press release site Newspress, though I can’t find the original press release. It shows Miki Biasion in the Group B Lancia Delta S4 from 1986. It looks more like John Singleton Copley’s “The Death of Major Pierson.” A truly amazing photo that captures the closeness of it all. That same year, Henri Toivonen and his co-driver Sergio Cresto died in the S4 they were driving.
Just look at this. Truly bonkers.
This moment in the World Rally Championship is probably the last mainstream racing season that was somehow too dangerous for the drivers and the competitors. The only modern equivalent is the Isle of Man TT, which saw five fatalities in 2022. While the risk exists at any racing event, no one throws themselves in front of cars like rally nerds in the ’80s. That’s probably a good thing.
Group B produced some of the greatest and most desirable cars ever. That’s the appeal to me of Art of Rally. I love the romantic version of this period when the cars were almost always faster than the drivers.
I think there’s also an appeal because so many modern F1 tracks have started to feel like every other F1 track. The race could be in Miami and still sort of look like Bahrain or Abu Dhabi. I think that’s part of the reason why I love Monaco, even if it’s the least exciting race on the F1 calendar. It looks like Monaco.
WRC in the Group B era had the magic of the wildest cars, the best drivers, the craziest fans, and tracks that represented the extremes of planet earth. I miss it in the same way some of the people in those videos miss their pinkies.
Photo: Newspress
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