Motor Racing / Shav Glick : World Championship Rally Starts

For the first time since 1974, a world championship rally, the Toyota Olympus Rally, will be held in the United States, starting tonight in Tacoma, Wash.

The four-day, four-night event, the finale of a 13-race world championship schedule, will run approximately 900 miles in 44 stages through forest roads in southwest Washington. Fifty-six cars, including 20 foreign teams, are entered.

Two Finns, Markku Alen and Juha Kankkunen, are battling for the world drivers’ championship. Alen, who has a one-point lead, drives a Lancia Delta S4. Kankkunen will be in a Peugeot 205. Peugeot has already clinched the manufacturers’ championship.

“The Olympus rally will have the most impact on the sport of rallying of any event in the ‘80s,” said Rod Millen, a veteran New Zealand rallyist who lives in Newport Beach. Millen, runner-up in this year’s U.S. Pro Rally season, will drive a Mazda 323, a four-wheel-drive sub-compact car.

“(The event) has attracted worldwide attention, and if all goes well it could mean a great deal toward popularizing rallying in this country,” Millen said.

Because of a rash of fatal high-speed accidents on paved roads in European rallies, a rule change next year will ban the powerful turbocharged high horsepower four-wheel-drive Group B super rally cars. Next year, only mass-produced Group A cars, with limited modifications, will be eligible for the world championship.

Millen has been driving a hybrid Mazda RX-7 4x4 in the Sports Car Club of America’s Pro Rally series, but American rules do not comply with world rules, so it is not eligible for the Olympus event. Millen instead will drive Mazda’s production model.

Millen’s brother, Steve, who also moved from New Zealand to live in Orange County, will drive a Toyota Celica twin-cam turbo rally car as part of three Toyota Team Europe entries in Group B.

This will be Steve’s first rally competition in two years, since he has been concentrating on racing ARS Indy-type cars, IMSA sports cars and short-course off-road trucks.

Rod, on the other hand, is a rally specialist who won three New Zealand championships before coming to the United States in 1979. He won the 1981 Pro Rally championship after a season-long battle with John Buffum of Burlington, Vt. Buffum, who has won 9 championships in the last 11 years, including 5 straight since losing to Millen, will be one of the Olympus favorites in a four-wheel-drive Audi Sport Quattro.

“I never felt comfortable driving a road-racing car on asphalt,” Rod explained. “I love driving on loose surface roads. I find it challenging to drive on a slippery, sliding course.

“When I started in racing back in New Zealand, I found out early that the guy with the most bucks could blow me off in a road race, but when I got him in a rally I could get back at him because driver skill became more important. It was frustrating to lose to a guy on pavement when you knew you could beat him on dirt.”

Rod, at 35 the younger of the Millen brothers, left New Zealand in 1978 because he was “bored with winning so much.” He tried England briefly but didn’t like the life style, and settled on Southern California. In his first year he won the North American Rally Racing Assn. championship in a Datsun 510.

“I’d always driven a Mazda back home, so when I was offered a chance to drive one in 1980, I took it,” he said. “I’m disappointed that the RX-7 isn’t eligible for the Olympus rally, but I think we’ll do well in the 323. I drove one last July in the New Zealand round of the world championship and finished second.”

The difference in speed between the turbocharged super rally cars and the production models is not as significant as might be expected.

“There are places where we’re on pavement that we’ll probably hit 120 m.p.h.,” Millen said. “The big cars will probably be close to 140, but top speed is not the major factor. It’s acceleration,”

Rod also prefers rallying to other forms of racing because every race, every turn, is different.

“In a road race, you keep going around the same course lap after lap. That’s no fun. In a rally, you never see the same place twice. I find it fascinating to go to places people would normally never go.

“At a rally, when you get up in the early dawn, you can look around and see wonderful sights in natural surroundings. Not like looking at the same old race track, the same old stadium.”

Buffum, America’s best rallyist, put it this way: “Road racing is a repetitive event. You see the same 12 corners 100 times and you have to strive for perfection each time. In rallying, you see 1,200 corners only once. Rallying takes more experience since you only have one shot at each corner.”

DRIVER OF THE YEAR--Bobby Rahal, winner of the Indianapolis 500 and the CART/PPG Indy car championship, was a unanimous choice as driver of the year by a panel of motor racing journalists who annually select the award winner. Rahal, 33, won six races and $1,488,049 on the Indy car circuit.

OFF-ROAD RACING--Mark McMillin, a four-time winner of the Baja 1,000, will attempt to win his first California off-road race Saturday in the Soutar’s-Budweiser 250 in Barstow. It will be the final race of the High Desert Racing Assn./SCORE International series. McMillin, driving a Porsche-powered Chenowth single-seater, will be the first of an expected 300 entries to take off at 8 a.m. from Barstow Community College. Other favorites include McMillin’s father, Corky, defending series champion in the two-seater class; Roger Mears, who won the mini-pickup division in the Baja 1,000; Bob Gordon, unlimited two-seat winner at the Baja 1,000; and Walker Evans, leader in the full-size pickup class. The Barstow race will also determine the champion of the stock mini-pickup class between two-time defending champion Spencer Low and challenger Willie Valdez, who are tied after seven races.

CHRISTMAS--For anyone interested in old race cars, from Barney Oldfield’s Ford 999 to Ferraris, Porsches and Jaguars to the Cunninghams, Corvettes and Cobras built in the U.S., “Vintage & Historic Racing Cars,” by Alex Gabbard, is guaranteed to be a pleasing gift on Christmas morning. Published by HPBooks, the 192-page volume is filled with more than 250 color photos, accompanied by Gabbard’s informative and entertaining writing.

MOTORCYCLES--Bernie Schreiber of La Crescenta, former world trials champion, and national champion Scott Head will be among the competitors Sunday in the 17th annual El Trial de Espana. The event, sanctioned by the American Trials Assn., will start at 9:30 a.m., at the Littlerock Reservoir, near Palmdale.

STOCK CARS--Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt will collect checks totaling $750,779 at Friday night’s NASCAR banquet in New York, increasing his 1986 earnings to $1,768,880. Runner-up Darrell Waltrip, last year’s champion, will collect $355,389, which will give him $1,099,737 for the year. Bill Elliott, who won a motor racing record $2,383,187 a year ago, slipped to $1,049,142 this year. Bud Moore, crew chief for Ricky Rudd, will collect $20,000 as mechanic of the year, and Randy Dorton, who builds engines for Daytona 500 winner Geoff Bodine and recent Riverside winner Tim Richmond, will get $10,000 as engine builder of the year.

LAND SPEED--Don Carr of Montrose, driving the Carr-Kaplan AA lakester, recorded the fastest time in El Mirage Dry Lake history with a run of 286.16 m.p.h. at the final SoCal Timing Assn. meeting of the year.