Benny Melander's Memories

[Justin Smith]

Hello Justin. Some words about our rallies in the RS200.

The first rally we did was The Swedish Rally. Kalle and I had not many miles in the car before the rally, just 1 test in the north of Sweden so when the rally started we have to learn a lot about the car. But the speed increased during the rally and I will remember that we was fastest on some stages towards the end of the rally.

After Sweden, we went to Portugal for testing on both gravel and tarmac. Stig made the most of the gravel and Kalle took care of the tarmac.

Then we did the Rally Portugal started with the stages in Sintra and everybody must remember what’s happened there! Santos in a RS200 went in to the spectators killing 4 and injured nearly 40. Ford retired all cars after that and all factory drivers had a meeting and decided to withdraw.

Next it was time for Greece test and when the test was nearly finished a fire started in the engine department and that was the finish of that car.
The day before start, we and Stig/Bruno took the reccecars out on SS1 for a tire test and there the 2nd 200 went up in flames. It was our car and unfortunately it started a forest fire and the hole afternoon air firefighters were working to stop it!

The rally started well for us, we were leading at the beginning but a a service stop for changing tires they couldn’t get the nuts off and not even back on again and before the problem was solved we were running OTL.

After Greece we did the circuit of Ireland and that started very badly for us, if I remember it correct we hit a young man in the front of the car at high speed, we stopped the car and there was a helicopter above as filming and they had a doctor with them and they landed, took care of the boy and took him to Wiktoria hospital in Belfast am luckily he survived, the rest of the rally went well until we had a tire explosion wish blow the end of the car away damaged the filling pipe for the petrol stopping us from continuing.

Next rally in the 200 was the Audi Rally in Wales. We finished 3rd overall after Stig and Mark Lovell also in 200. We had a quick roll that cost some time.

Then it was time for the last one, RAC. I don’t remember so much from the rally only from the end, we wear fighting with Tony Pond for 5th and the last stage was long 42km and just after start Kalle was saying something in the intercom but I couldn’t hear wat he was complaining about and when we came to the finish I looked at him and he was crying and he told me that the power steering was broken and he had such a pain in his arms.

Luckily we beat Tony for 5th. During the rally retired with a broken cam belt, and as a funny finish of my words, when our car came back to Boreham and the lads reversed the car of the trailer the car belt broke, so luckily for us this could have happened on the road section back to Bath.

I hope you are satisfied with my story!

Kind regards Benny

[Nikki]

Great read... Thanks Justin and Benny !