For the World Rally Championship, the 1980s was a decade of drama, controversy, triumph, tragedy and, most importantly, Champions. In this action-packed DVD we meet every World Rally Champion from a turbulent time, as well as the cars they drove.
Thirty years after the end of Group B rallying, film-maker Helmut Deimel has launched his latest film on rallying’s wildest era. For “Riding Balls of Fire”, the Austrian legend behind the hugely popular “Evolution of Rallying” has gathered together the finest archive footage of the 500 bhp Group B supercars in their prime. Watching this film really shows the extreme pace of evolution of the cars and the sport in the three short years from 1983 to 1986.
The ‘Group B’ International Motorsports Category was conceived in the late seventies as a return to the ‘good old days’ when amateur and factory teams alike could run the same production-based cars in either sports car racing or championship rally events. By the early eighties the class had become the ‘Godzilla’ of the rally scene and what resulted were the most awesome cars ever seen on the rally stages of the world - 600 horsepower, 4WD, turbocharged monsters that could cover forest, tarmac or gravel stages faster than anything ever seen before or since. In 1986 the door was slammed shut on the F1 cars of mountain and forest roads. Faster and faster cars combined with wilder and crazier crowds meant that within the confines of rally car competition the group B rocket ships were just “too fast to race”. The legacy of Group B, however, is a whole range of spectacular cars that continue to thrill enthusiasts. Includes awesome action footage and stunning close ups.
A labour of love, The Evolution of Rallying took Producer Helmut Deimel 120 days to piece together in the edit suite. He combed through over 500 hours of race footage from the early 1950s up to 2001. Taking in the careers of such greats as Jim Clark, Ari Vatanen, Tony Pond, and Pentti Airikkala this excellent documentary tells the story of how a part-time hobby turned into a multi-million dollar competition contested by major works teams. Packed full of great action footage Evolution captures the true essence and atmosphere of one of the most popular forms of motorsport in the world today.
The Italian rally, between the Seventies and Nineties, achieved success and popularity never seen before: Lancia, with its Racing Department, dominated the world scene.
