This is heaven: former (1996-'99) WRC driver's champion Tommi Makinen going head-to-head with current champ Marcus Grunholm. They are ready to start the first heat of a best two out of three, winner take all bragging rights race, laying claim to the unofficial title-Champion of Champions. And they will do it in identical cars, on the same track, at the same time.
But first, take a quick look around and you will see, not one but two, legendary Group B Audi Quattro S1s; a pair of Per Eklund's awesome 4WD 600 hp Saab 9-3 rallycross cars; Makinen's Group A Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VI (fresh from the Network Q Rally of Great Britain) as well as three Group N EVO VIs; the new Peugeot WRC 206; three Toyota Corolla WRCs and not to be forgotten, a pair of early '70s Mark 1 BDA Ford Escorts.
With a little effort, you could shake hands with nine current and former World Rally Champions, two Pikes Peak winners and last year's European Rallycross champion. You could also meet three motorcycle World Champions, three winners of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and an Indy 500 (and IndyCar Champion) winner. All of these drivers as well as holders of many other European and national titles have come to Telde on Gran Canaria Island to compete head-to-head in the Michelin Race of Champions.
This end-of-season event, now in its 13th year, is the brainchild of Fredrik Johnson. In the late '80s, there was little drama left in determining the next WRC Driver's Champion. Now with seven full-time factory teams, the championship is wide open, but a few years ago, one of the few factory drivers would win and the rest of the field, despite their talent, would not.
Johnson and Michele Mouton (Mouton was the first woman to ever win a WRC event (1981) and missed winning the World Rally Driver's Championship by one point in 1982) set out to create a fun, relaxed event that would bring together the world's best rally drivers and pit them head-to-head in identical cars, to determine an unofficial "Champion of Champions." Three years ago, the list of drivers invited to compete in this FIA sanctioned event expanded to include road and motorcycle racers.
The first event, held in 1988 in Monthlery France, sent the drivers out one at a time in the same car with the best time winning. The 1989 event, held at the Nrburgring Germany, featured two parallel tracks and sent the drivers out two at a time, the head-to-head format used by the RoC ever since. The next two events were held in Spain and in 1992, the event found a home near Telde, on Grand Canary Island (the Canary Islands, though off the coast of Africa, are part of Spain and are one of Europe's favorite vacation spots).
There the organizers built one of the world's most unique racetracks. Situated in a small valley surrounded by steep hills, is a 2.6 km track. The last corner through the start-finish line and the first turn is tarmac, the rest is gravel. There are jumps and water splashes, blind crests leading into hairpin turns and all the way around competitors can see each other. Just to make sure it is absolutely fair, there is a crossover bridge shortly after the hairpin at the far end of the circuit. If you start on the inside track by the time you hit the finish line you are on the outside! What appear to be two laps is in fact one long lap that folds over itself. From one of the many switchbacks cut into the steep hillsides, spectators can see the entire course.
The competition's basic idea is simple: Lose your round and it is time to go to the Michelin tent for an ice-cold Beck's. Win, and you advance to the next round. The Canarias Masters vie for a spot in the Spanish Masters with the winner moving to the International Rally Master round. The Rally Master round sends two drivers and the Rally Legends sends one to compete against the five seeded drivers who already hold spots in the Race of Champions. Beginning with the Rally Master round, the format is best two out of three. Just to make it interesting, each heat of the RoC uses a different car. First up this year was the Toyota Corolla WRC, next a Group N Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI and for the tiebreaker, the all-wheel-drive, 600-hp Saab 9-3 Rallycross car.
Friday's program began with the Canarias Masters, 19 of the best drivers from the Canary Islands' two provinces drove Toyota Rav4s and vied for a spot in the Spanish Masters round. Local hero, Flavio Alonso, was fastest and went on to also win the afternoon's Spanish Masters round, much to the delight of the 10,000 or so local fans, earning a spot in Saturday's Rally Masters round. The rest of the day was devoted to practice for Saturday's eliminations.
Saturday, the pace picked up as the Rally Masters round began. The Rally Master competitors are selected from the world's best rally drivers. This year's invited drivers included Armin Schwarz, Pedro Chavez, Cody Crocker, Tom Kristensen, Januzs Kulig, Sebastien Loeb, Adruzilio Lopes, Niall McShea, Jesus Puras and Kenjiro Shinozuka. The drivers were split into two groups and each driver raced every driver in his group. The drivers with the most victories advanced to the semi-final round. Schwarz, by virtue of his Rally Master win last year had a bye for the preliminary round and defeated McShea in their semi-final. The other semi-final pitted Alonso against Le Mans winner Kristensen. Schwarz defeated Kristensen in the Rally Master final but both advanced to Sunday's Race of Champions.
Trying to fill the last spot in Sunday's field were six rally "Legends." Made up of former champions no longer involved full-time in rallying, the field included Bjorn Waldegard (the first modern-era champion in 1979), Hannu Mikkola (1983), Stig Blomqvist (1984), Timo Salonen (1985), Massimo Biasion (1988 and '89) and Per Eklund (1999 European Rallycross Champion). Proving that age is no barrier to rally drivers, two of the oldest drivers in the competition made the final with 54-year-old Stig Blomqvist defeating 57-year-old Bjorn Waldegard to earn the final spot in the next day's Race of Champions.
Saturday's Nation's Cup, added even more to the weekend's international flavor. Seven teams (each made up of one rally driver, one road racer and one motorcycle racer), from Germany, France, Finland, Italy, Spain, the United States, Japan and a team of international all-stars competed for national honor.
In part one, the teams were divided into two groups and each team drove against the other three teams in their group. Rally drivers competed against each other in the Corolla WRC cars bringing a teammate along for the ride. The road and cycle racers competed in the RoC buggy; an off-road style buggy powered by a Honda CBR 1100cc motorcycle engine. The U.S. team of Danny Sullivan (1988 IndyCar champion), Rod Millen (Pikes Peak record holder) and Colin Edwards (2000 Superbike World Champion) fared well against the Japanese team, but lost 1-2 against both Spain and France. The French team of Didier Auriol, Yvan Muller and Regis Laconi would go on to defeat the Italian team of Miki Biasion, Emanuelle Pirro and Valentino Rossi 3-0 to win the event.
Many fans leaving Saturday evening did not go far, as they immediately began to set up camp alongside the road outside the main gate in order to be first in line at 6 a.m. and reclaim their favorite hillside viewing spots. Their dedication was rewarded with a surprise play-off for the last spot in the final. Tom Kristensen was unable to stay for Sunday's race and Flavio Alonso defeated Niall McShea to claim his spot. Unfortunately, Alonso drew Tommi Makinen and there was no story book finish for the Canary Island driver. As the crowd of 25,000 roared their support, the track announcer said it best, "Makinen! Alonso! Go Flavio Go! Alonso! Alonso! Andale! Alonso, Andale! Go, Flavio, go! Alonso! Alonso! Oh, Makinen."
The other quarter finals were just as exciting, with Marcus Grunholm defeating Stig Blumqvist 2-0, Didier Auriol winning the decisive third heat by .04 second more than Armin Schwarz, and Gilles Panizzi downing Italian sensation Valentino Rossi 2-0. Grunholm went on to defeat Auriol 2-0 winning the first heat by only .06 second. Makinen won his round with Panizzi 2-0 to set up an all Finn final. Makinen won the first heat in the Toyota WRC by .54 second and when Grunholm went a little wide, hard enough to break one of the Saab's CV joints, Makinen won his first ever Champion of Champions title 2-0.
John and Vinnie came all the way from Boston. "This is great! The Saabs looked just awesome. Unbelievable cars, it was worth every inch of the trip," they shouted in unison. "We even got our picture with Stig!"
If you love rallying, would like the chance to meet a World Champion or two, need a break in a vacation paradise and have a little free time in early December log onto www.raceofchampions.com and start planning for next year's event.
The Super CarsSome of the most outrageous cars proved to be Per Eklund's Saab 9-3s.
With the Garrett turbocharged 2.0-liter fours putting out 600 hp, even the engine's sump is specially designed to strengthen and support the block. Forged from 60 mm aluminum bar stock, the sump is clamped to the block by 10 head bolts that go all the way through the head, block and sump.
The intercooler is so large, the radiator was moved to what would be the rear seats.
Rallycross rules require the driver's door and roof to be factory sheetmetal, but the remainder of the mostly tube-framed car's panels are made of carbon fiber.
Depending on the event and wheels used, its AP brakes can range in size from 305 to 400 mm. These Saab 9-3s were fitted with 340 mm discs for the RoC.
Power is put to the ground through a ProDrive six-speed gearbox and program-mable active differential. A prototype GEMS system controls the engine management and diff. The suspension features three-way adjustable Donerre shocks and other ProDrive components.
With the Trollspeed of Trollhattan-tuned engine putting out nearly 600 lb-ft of torque, the Saabs will hit 60 mph in less than 2.5 seconds (that's quick enough to beat Mika off the line!).
Toyota CorollaThe only cars allowed through the water splash, and over the jump were the Toyota Corollas-all others had to go around these hazards.
Current WRC rules mandate that all the cars share a number of important specifications and dimensions. A 34 mm turbo restrictor aims at limiting the 2.0-liter engines to 300 hp.
Toyota mechanics admitted seeing 320 hp during one dyno pull, but that was all that was possible. Besides that engine did not have the most desirable torque curve, they told SCC.
All the WRC cars have a turbo anti-lag system and the engines are tuned as much for usable torque as for maximum horsepower.
These particular race cars use X-Trac six-speed sequential gearboxes, with active front differentials, and viscous center and rear diffs for getting as much power as possible to the ground. The shifter is connected to one of five on-board computers (engine, diffs, transmission and two data acquisition) and the ignition is cut as the shift lever is moved. The ignition is not restored until the gears are fully engaged.
Clutches are only used from a dead stop. Alcon supplied the 340 mm vented rotors and four-piston calipers, while Ohlins struts team with Eibach springs for better handling. Cologne-based Toyota Team Europe makes all the hubs, carriers and camber plates in its own CNC machine shop.
Michelins are mounted on Techno Magnesia wheels. Everything on the car is as light as possible; for example, the gearbox housing is magnesium. Even the thickness of the body panels is mandated, though the teams will acid- dip them to bring the thickness to the minimum standard. But it takes a large 190 amp Nippon Denso alternator to supply all the electrical needs. The active diffs require 32 bars, about 460 psi, of hydraulic pressure to operate.
For the race, the Toyotas were in customer-car trim, but were scheduled to visit Toyota Team Europe's shop to be brought up to full EVO specs.
After the EVO tuning, all three differentials will be active and a paddle-type shifter will become available.
Peugot 206Spectators at the Race of Champions got some very special treats. In addition to the exhibition runs by the Audi Sport quattros, there was an exhibition run that pitted Marcus Grunholm in a Peugeot against Tommi Makinen in his own Group A Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VI.
Mitsubishi has chosen to stay in Group A and has not gone the full WRC route. But the Group A cars are nearly as powerful and are as technologically advanced as anything in the WRC class. The turbocharged 16-valve four has the same bore and stroke, 85 mm x 88 mm, as the Peugeot WRC 206, but gives up between 15 and 20 hp in Group A trim.
Both of the electronically fuel-injected cars use three-plate carbon fiber clutches and are all-wheel drive. The Mitsubishi sends power through an INVECS sequential six-speed, while the Peugeot uses an X-Trac box. Both cars utilize active differentials.
The Peugeot uses a MacPherson strut on each of the four corners, while the Mitsu has MacPherson struts up front and a multi-link independent rear suspension. All the WRC cars run on 15-inch wheels and sport 300mm brake rotors (18-inch wheels and 340mm rotors for a tarmac rally) clamped by four-piston calipers.
On an interesting note, the RoC entry is the first customer-trim car Peugeot has released to a private team.
FordEscortMk1The Ford Escort Mk1 BDA was state-of-the-rally-art when it was built in 1973.
The cars used in the Rally Legends competition were built by David Sutton Historic Motorsport (David Sutton Cars campaigns in the WRC) and competed in the 16,000 km London to Sydney rally.
These Marathon-spec cars carried enough spares in the trunk to survive a month without support. In fact, due to a bad batch of exhaust valves, the engine was rebuilt twice (top to bottom) on rest days. Given the spotty quality of fuel available along the route, the car's fuel tank was divided into two compartments so the team could save a tank of known good gas for the performance stages.
Other than modern safety gear and the special fuel tank, the cars are remarkably faithful to the original spec, including the cable driven Helda rally computer.
The 1600cc dry-sump Millington Ford four cylinder features a pair of Weber 48 DCOE carbs and sends 240 hp to the rear wheels via a ZF five-speed gearbox and Atlas rear axle.
The front suspension is a coil-over (Bilstien) MacPherson set-up and five leaf slipper springs are part of a five-link rear suspension.
AP rotors (280mm) are slotted and vented and used at each corner. Four-piston AP calipers grab the fronts, while two-piston calipers suffice in the rear. Thirteen-inch Dunlops are mounted on 6-inch wide Minilite wheels.
The Escort's 0 to 60 numbers weren't available, but we're assured the little two-door saloon "gets from here to there bloody quick!"