The joy of oversteer, not on the public road

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st4

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C220cdi tourer
On Saturday some friends and I decided we would go and watch some rallying which was going on in Perthshire.


Here is the full album


2nd October, Aberfeldy Colin MacRae Rally | Facebook

Two of my mates are very big on rallying, its not something I know an awful lot about other than it involves oversteer and going very fast down small roads, many of them not tarmac’d.

The Rally was up in the woods, and although some people have posted about sunshine and 30c temps in Kent over the weekend, Scotland missed out on all that, and it was the usual diet of rain and cloud.

The stage we set up base was up in the forests above Dalguisse, nr the old Kinnaird Estate. Grober may know what I am on about.

Mud in the water

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Here we are trecking up the hills

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Here is why you need a brolly

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Oversteer
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Some front on Shots

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The “big boys”

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I for one really enjoyed watching this and all the cars go flying past. Rallying clearly involves a lot more driving skill, and commitment than I have, plus access to significant funds even to run a small cheap older car like so

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But what a lot of fun!!!
 
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Those Escorts are worth a bit, now days!
 
Those Escorts are worth a bit, now days!

£40k IIRC. They are ideal for this though, and if you have the money, why not enjoy it.

A lot of local garage owners down here run a rally car, and use it to advertise their business, still a loss maker but fun in the process.
 
Very nice Steve. I love the pic of the water too.
 
I got the chance to go on a rally driving day in a very foggy forest somewhere in Wales a couple of years ago. It was freezing cold (with a bit of snow on the ground), muddy like you would not believe and messy but a huge amount of fun and a lot harder than you think

If you ever get the chance, take it.
 
Brings back memories from the days when the GB Rally came out of Wales.

Saw it in Clumber Park numerous times (they built a pontoon over the lake for pedestrians as the bridge was in use!), Chatsworth (a muddy day, not good for an automatic SD1 - towed out by a Landrover), and Kielder. Stunning driving.

Seen it a few times in Wales, but the last time I made it there, the stage was cancelled after a car slid into a spectator who was in the run off area (not very clever, but he got away with it).

Must be about that time again thinking about it? 10-13 November.
 
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Get yourself a cheap MX5 for some fun week-end B-road blasts. It won't be a patch on the cars you saw, but £ per smile it's hard to beat.
 
Nice shots Steve, I know the area well as I have competed in the Scottish Rally Championship on a number of occasions. Hopefully I will be at Knockhill in January for the first shot at the opening stages with the car in my signature which is actually photographed on the Lanark stages a few years ago.

If you want some fun my co drivers brother runs a Rally School in Ayrshire so maybe we organise a GTG there and have some sideways fun:bannana::bannana::bannana:
 
Rallying is the best form of motorsport and has bought about many performance upgrades to road cars, something that never comes from F1.
 
Get yourself a cheap MX5 for some fun week-end B-road blasts. It won't be a patch on the cars you saw, but £ per smile it's hard to beat.

I've changed my mind. You want this instead:

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Mid-engine rally car......what can possibly go wrong....
 
Get an old Group-B monster. No rally cars to date have matched the performance...as quick as an F1 car but on gravel.
 
I would like to book myself into one of those Rally school things, the fella who taught me to drive also is a part time rally instructor up at Knockhill, and he said I should go up ASAP after passing my test, something I've still never got round to doing.
 
Get yourself a cheap MX5 for some fun week-end B-road blasts. It won't be a patch on the cars you saw, but £ per smile it's hard to beat.

That would be an ideal no2 car for me thinking rationally. Ideal, however, money wise not quite there yet.
 
Get an old Group-B monster. No rally cars to date have matched the performance...as quick as an F1 car but on gravel.

No Rally Car even a Group B monster is anywhere near as quick as an F1 car I have driven both and can speak from experience. I could easily drive a group B car all day and regularly did before moving into club rallying. I have driven the 1980's Benneton, and later Jaguar and Toyota F1 cars After 5 laps around Donnington in the Jaguar I had to be lifted from the car as I did not have the strength to get out of the tub could not pull myself up I was so physically drained. To be an F1 driver even running at the back of the pack you have to be supremely fit, the G force in an F1 car is far in excess of anything you will ever experience in a Rally car. Rallying is all about feeling your way over the surface and knowing the limits of the car.

Most group B cars (and they were split into different sections of group B) kicked out around 600 horses stuff like the SWB Quattro , Lancia Delta, Metro 6R4 around 450 bhp Most F1 cars of the same time were putting out close to an Insane 1400 bhp over twice the power of a Group B car

Most of the developments we see now on our road cars came from F1 not rallying, Antilock brakes, traction control to name a coulpe, the rally car designers took their cue from the F1 designers and slowly rally cars started to get complicated and expensive a far cry from the humble roots of the Mk1 Escorts and Hillman avengers. A F1 race car of the day would be ~ £2m a group B car although manufacturers played it close to their chest would be ~£0.5m tops
 

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