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Russell Brookes
Russell Brookes (16 August 1945 – 30 October 2019) was a British rally driver. He won the British Rally Championship with a Ford Escort RS1800 in 1977 and with an Opel Manta 400 in 1985. In 1978, he won the Rally New Zealand, a round of the FIA Cup for Drivers, the predecessor to the World Championship for Drivers. In the World Rally Championship, he finished on the podium of his home event, the RAC Rally, three times in a row from 1977 to 1979. Career The only son of a firefighter, Brookes made his competitive debut in club events in 1963. At first he drove a number of privately entered cars including a BMC Mini Cooper. Progress was slow until 1973 without the support of family money in a sport which, at that time, did not permit sponsorship of individual cars. He then came to the attention of the Ford Motor Company Ltd when contesting their Ford Escort Mexico (One Make) championship. In 1974, Brookes started one of the longest running sponsorship deals in motorsport w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autosport
''Autosport'' is a global motorsport publishing brand headquartered based in Richmond, London. It was established in 1950 at the same time as the origins of the Formula One World Championship. Autosport began life as a weekly magazine in 1950 and expanded into digital publishing with the creation of Autosport.com in 1997. In 2016, Haymarket Media Group sold Autosport and the rest of its motorsport portfolio to Motorsport Network. Autosport.com Autosport launched its website – Autosport.com – in 1997. As distinct from the magazine, the online content is more internationally focussed and as well as covering sports news and reporting on races, Autosport.com also produces video and galleries taken from the Motorsport Images archive and in-depth long-form content in the website's subscriber-only sections. Autosport Plus Autosport Plus is a paywalled part of the autosport.com website with additional content. Current editorial team *Editor - Haydn Cobb *Plus Editor - James Newb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy McRae
Jimmy McRae (born 28 October 1943) is a British former rally driver. He was highly successful in the British Rally Championship, winning the title a record five times in 1981, 1982, 1984, 1987 and 1988 which as of 2020 still stands. In the European Rally Championship for drivers, he was runner-up in 1982, while his highest placing in the World Rally Championship was fifteenth in 1983. McRae runs a plumbing business in his home town of Lanark. He and his wife Margaret had three sons, Colin, Alister and Stuart. Both Colin and Alister McRae were World Rally Championship drivers, with Colin winning the world championship in 1995. McRae's brother-in-law Hugh "Shug" Steele is also a former rally driver. Career Jimmy began his motorsport career riding motorcycles and he competed in some motorcycle races. He started his rallying at the age of 31 driving his own Mk1 Cortina fitted with Lotus running gear followed by an Escort Mk1 twin cam. The following year he approached SMT and drove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Group B
Group B was a set of regulations for grand touring (GT) vehicles used in sports car racing and rallying introduced in 1982 by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). Although permitted to enter a GT class of the World Sportscar Championship alongside the more popular racing prototypes of Group C, Group B are commonly associated with the international rallying scene during 1982 to 1986 in popular culture, when they were the highest class used across rallying, including the World Rally Championship, regional and national championships. The Group B regulations fostered some of the fastest, most powerful, and most sophisticated rally cars ever built and their era is commonly referred to as the golden era of rallying.''Top Gear'' websiteThe corner that killed Group B However, a series of major accidents, some fatal, were blamed on their outright speed with lack of crowd control at events. After the death of Henri Toivonen and his co-driver Sergio Cresto in the 1986 To ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vauxhall Chevette
The Vauxhall Chevette is a supermini car that was manufactured by Vauxhall in the United Kingdom from 1975 to 1984. It was Vauxhall's version of the " T-Car" small-car family from Vauxhall's parent General Motors (GM), and based primarily on the Opel Kadett C. The family also included the Isuzu Gemini in Japan, the Holden Gemini in Australia, the Chevrolet Chevette in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Argentina, and in the U.S. and Canada it was also rebadged as the Pontiac Acadian/Pontiac T1000. Development The Chevette, as its name implies, was intended to be a small (baby) Chevrolet. At the same time as the Chevette project was being considered in America, Vauxhall Motors publicised a new design project, provisionally referred to as the Baby R, but this was not used. Instead, a common design was chosen for all markets based upon an existing vehicle, the Opel Kadett. The car was first launched in Brazil in 1973 as a slightly restyled Kadett with a ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1979 World Rally Championship Season
The 1979 World Rally Championship was the seventh season of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) World Rally Championship (WRC). The season consisted of 12 rallies, one more than the previous year. The addition marked the return to New Zealand, an event which would remain on the schedule through today. 1979 marked the first season for the new World Rally Championship for Drivers. This successor to the preceding FIA Cup for Rally Drivers was aligned with the World Rally Championship for Manufacturers. Both championships used the same schedule of events for accumulating points toward the titles, although the point awarding methods were different for each. Manufacturers continued to receive points under the system adopted in 1977, in which points were garnered for both placement overall and placement within the car's group. Only the top finishing car from each manufacturer would garner points, and regardless of group finish, an overall finish of 10th or better was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ari Vatanen
Ari Pieti Uolevi Vatanen (; born 27 April 1952) is a Finnish rally driver turned politician and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1999 to 2009. Vatanen won the World Rally Championship drivers' title in 1981 and the Paris Dakar Rally four times. In addition, Vatanen won the 1997 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies. Since 2013 Vatanen has been the President of the Estonian Autosport Union. Racing career His debut year in rallying was 1970, and he debuted in the World Rally Championship at the 1974 1000 Lakes Rally. In that year he won the Nortti Rally in an Opel Ascona, beating Hannu Mikkola in the process, which brought him to wider attention. His first international rally was the 1975 Rothmans 747 Rally in Jamaica driving a Datsun 120Y. He placed 12th with co-driver Gerry Phillips. At the end of that season he was offered his first professional drive, in a Ford Escort RS1800, on the RAC Rally. He crashed out on the second day, but by then he had impressed Fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hannu Mikkola
Hannu Olavi Mikkola (24 May 1942 − 25 February 2021) was a Finnish champion world rally driver. He was a seven-time winner of the 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland and won the RAC Rally in Great Britain four times. Career Mikkola's rally career spanned 31 years, starting with a Volvo PV544 in 1963, but his most successful period was during the 1970s and 1980s. The 1970s saw Mikkola a frontrunner in many international events, usually in a Ford Escort. He became the first overseas driver to win the East African Safari Rally in 1972, partnered by Gunnar Palm and again in a Ford Escort. In 1979 he made a serious challenge at the World Rally Championship title, ultimately finishing runner-up, only one point behind champion Björn Waldegård. Mikkola was joined by Swedish co-driver Arne Hertz in 1977 and the pair were very quickly a force to be reckoned with, winning the British Rally Championship in 1978 in an Escort. The Mikkola/Hertz partnership lasted for thirteen years, through t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Björn Waldegård
Björn Waldegård (12 November 1943 – 29 August 2014) was a Swedish rally driver, and the winner of the inaugural World Rally Championship for drivers in 1979. His Swedish nickname was "Walle". Career Waldegård, who came from Rimbo, had a career that spanned four decades; he made his debut in 1962 and, after winning the Swedish Rally Championship in 1967 and '68, continued to compete at the top level until 1992 when a broken arm suffered during a crash in the 1992 Safari Rally forced his retirement. His first international victory, at the wheel of a Porsche 911, came on the 1969 Monte Carlo Rally, while his last came for Toyota on the 1990 Safari. It made him the oldest driver to win a World Rally Championship event, a record he retained until the 2022 Monte Carlo Rally. In the mid-1970s Waldegård took part in the newborn European Championship for Rallycross Drivers with a privately entered Porsche Carrera RSR. His best overall result was to become the Runner-up to Austri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ford Escort (Europe)
The Ford Escort is a small family car that was manufactured by Ford of Europe from 1968 until 2000. In total there were six generations, spread across three basic platforms beginning with the original rear-wheel drive Mk.1/Mk.2 (1968–1980), the "Erika" front wheel drive Mk.3/Mk.4 (1980–1990), and the final CE-14 Mk.5/Mk.6 (1990–2002) version. Its successor - the Ford Focus - was released in 1998, but the final generation of Escort was gradually phased out, with the panel van version ending production in 2002 in favour of the Ford Transit Connect. The Escort was frequently the best selling car in Britain during the 1980s and 1990s. A total of more than 4.1 million Escorts of all generations were sold there over a period of 33 years. In 2014, Ford revived the Escort name for a car based on the second-generation Ford Focus sold on the Chinese market. Naming Convention Whilst the Escort designation existed three basic platforms (and officially, the canon does not inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
