1985: Vatanen survives massive accident

A serious accident on the Rally of Argentina has left both Ari Vatanen and Terry Harryman in hospital with multiple injuries.

The Ulsterman has suffered a fracture of a cervical vertebrae, and should be fit again after some weeks of traction, but Vatanen has more severe injuries, a fractured lumbar vertebrae, and a badly broken tibia (just below the knee), giving surgeons cause for concern, although no neurological damage is suspected.

The accident happened on the second special stage, when the Peugeot 205 hit a mudhole at about 190kph while flat out in fifth gear, launching itself into a series of violent rolls, shredding bodywork and finishing off the gravel track.

Immediately the team's helicopter started a rescue operation, transporting both men to a local town hospital, where they stayed until doctors had satisfied themselves that they could be flown back to Cordoba.

Vatanen also suffered a number of fractured ribs and sustained some other internal injuries causing breathing difficulties, and was kept in intensive care until Saturday, when an air ambulance was on standby to fly both men back
to Europe. By this stage, Harryman had been released from intensive care, but doctors were anxious that an urgent operation was required on the driver's left knee.

The ambulance arrived in Paris on Sunday, Vatanen being transferred to another aeroplane which took him on to Helsinki, Harryman being taken to Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital.

In Northern Ireland, Harryman was expected to spend about six weeks on his back for traction, but is in good spirits. While in Finland, attention concentrated on the leg injuries, the top of the left tibia broken in two places and requiring very delicate surgery.

As we went to press, a Peugeot Talbot Sport spokesman stated that it was unlikely that he had any problems with the nervous system, but that it may be up to six months before he makes a recovery.

On Tuesday, a senior surgeon at the Helsinki hospital described Vatanen's condition as, "Much better. He was very tired after the flight, but we are now planning surgery on the leg, perhaps on Thursday." Although the extent of some injuries has not yet been established, we are delighted to report that the mood in Finland is now much more optimistic.




Peugeot came within an ace of winning the World Championship of Rallies in record time, when their works driver Timo Salonen won the Rally of Argentina. But they must now wait till the Rally of 1000 Lakes at the end of August, because Wilfried Wiedner, an Austrian on his first world rally, finished second at the wheel of an Audi Quattro.

It was a rally of happiness and sadness. The former due to the fun that Carlos Reutemann's entry created, and the latter because of a serious accident which befell Ari Vatanen on the second stage, and has left the driver, and co-driver Terry Harryman in hospital, flown home in an air ambulance for Vatanen to undergo major operations.

Peugeot found they were able to contain the new second-evolution Sport Quattro which was driven by Stig Blomqvist. Although it retired early, Stig proved that the car was competitive with the Peugeot, and confirmed that the handling was far superior to the old Sport Quattro.

The World Championship debut of the second evolution Audi Sport Quattro was a major novelty. It seemed too early for the new German car to show its full potential, and this emphasised the sense of their rivals but Peugeot entered three of their first-evolution cars, for their resident Finns and the third for former Grand Prix driver Carlos Reutemann, making his first competition appearance since aban-doning the Formula 1 scene in 1982.

Audi were also supporting the Austrian driver Wilfred Wiedner with an ex-works long-chassis Quattro A2 and the promotional activities involving this entry took up considerable pre-rally time in Germany and Austria. With five four-wheel-drive turbo-machines, there: seemed little chance for conventional cars, but leading the "veteran" class was Mehta with a basic Nissan 240RS, supported by his Kenyan friend Jayant Shah. These cars were considerably more powerful than any local machines, the strongest entries coming from Renault 18GTX Group A cars. These 150BHP cars were the only local works cars, though several privately owned 110bhp Renault 12TS cars were factory assisted as well.

The return of Reutemann added a special dimension to the event, as despite his lack of recent experience he was back on home ground. Twenty years ago, almost to the day, Reutemann won his first event, on some of the same roads used as stages by the Rally of Argentina. In those days he drove a Fiat 1500 Berlina saloon, but because so much of the route has now been turned into asphalted roads, the open-roads events could never be held these days.

"Actually, the gravel roads have changed little in the meanwhile. They were perhaps even more slippery because fewer tourists used to pass by, but time has not changed them in other ways", commented the Argentinian.

The 138 starters constituted a remarkable record entry for a non-European world rally, handsomely beating the 105 official starters in 1984. All the entries were in Gp A or Gp B, several of the latter being cars accepted for national competition after limited production runs, but complying with FISA's alternative 200-off rules. Local Gp A cars were mostly Renault 12s, while Gp B cars composed local versions of Fiats and Peugeots.

Strangely the route came in for criticism from the two Peugeot drivers. "The route has the long unpleasant straights of Kenya and the rough holes of Portugal," Vatanen stated, an opinion confirmed by other visitors. There had been a huge amount of rain in recent weeks, more than recorded in the same period for the past 100 years. It was virtually the same route as used in 1984 with only one new stage.

"On SS9, there was a ford that was so deep we could not pass during training," Salonen added, though on only a few stages in the south-east did Peugeot feel they would run at anything of a disadvantage. Local journalists said Blomqvist was boasting he could take a minute off the French cars on the fast straights, but he refused to be drawn. Audi had little time for testing Blomqvist's car on the actual rally stages, though they chose not to use the controversial rear-mounted alternator after problems in America on the Olympus Rally.

After the long drive up from the start in Buenos Aires there were four stages before the crews reached Cordoba on the Wednesday afternoon. Blomqvist tied with Salonen on the first stage, but fastest overall was Vatanen. Then on stage two he suffered what must have been quite the most horrific accident of his career.

After recently explaining his foreboding of getting hurt in his column in the French newspaper L'Equipe his worst fears came true. The car launched itself skywards off a muddy dip on a fast downhill stretch. Onlookers said the Peugeot cartwheeled four times before crashing tail-first off the road into bushes. He and co-driver Harryman were flown to a local hospital, and then rushed again by helicopter (when Ari was strong enough), to Cordoba. Following drivers were unclear about what had happened, Blomq-vist stating he had merely seen "bits" of the Peugeot as he passed.

It had also been an eventful etape in other respects. Blomqvist landed in a dip and demolished his neat aerodynamic front end and then stalled in a ford for two minutes, while Recalde rolled his Renault 18GTX. Salonen was quickest, and after two stages was leading Acutoman by nearly 2m30s.

Mehta was already well down. He lost a couple of minutes with misfiring trouble then had a dead short on a road section which cost nine minutes on the road. Wiedner stopped on stage 2 for a couple of minutes with a motronic failure and then Recalde on stage 4 lost nearly 15 mins with overheating, which necessitated draining the whole water system.

On the faster stages Reutemann was struggling with his notes, co-driver Fauchille saying he was forced to simplify the instructions as he went along.

Positions at the end of the first etape were: 1, Salonen 1 h29m01 s; 2, Blomqvist 1 h31 m42s; 3, Wiedner 1h35m35s; 4, Reutemann 1h35m58s; 5, Mehta 1h41m59s; 6, Gabriel Raies (Renault 13GTX), 1 h42m32s.

Without the help of Vatanen, who was reported to be comfortable, even though still in intensive care, Salonen was thankful to have Reutemann as an ally in his continuing battle with Audi. Now reseeded at the head of the rally (101 cars being left), his margin over Blomqvist was comfortable enough to tolerate a puncture or two without worry.

Blomqvist was going better than before. "I think we are at least competitive with the Peugeots now," the Swede commented. On stage seven Salonen had a puncture which they changed, with the help of his helicopter crew, restarting just in front of Blomqvist who was running 2 mins behind. Blomq-vist held on for a while but then dust was too bad and Salonen pulled out almost a minute. It was to be the only serious problem for the Finn all day and, on stage eight his worries were substantially eased, when Blomqvist lost his oil pressure towards the end of the 61km. Despite this problem he still made second best time. When the supercar reached the service point after the stage, it became obvious that Audi could only pray for time, and pray desperately. It was of no use, the oil pressure could not be restored and a hole appeared in the crankshaft only 5kms, further down the road, before the crew even reached the next stage.

What was becoming apparent was a remarkable effort being made by Wilfried Wiedner, the Austrian driver who had brought his ex-works Quattro up to second place. This was his first ever World Championship event, and he was doing everything which Audi needed of him, maintaining station in case some-thing serious happened to Salonen. Reutemann was also driving sensibly, the Argentine and the Austrian putting up comparable times on the stages. Wiedner had a puncture while Reutemann reached the end of one stage without brakes, but otherwise they were both having trouble-free runs. The Nissan expert Mehta, however, could never get his 240RS to perform properly. In the end in was discovered that there was water in every fuel can in the team. "The car is going so badly I can only just keep ahead of the Renault 18s and if you look at my tyres they are not worn at all."

Jorge Recalde ended an unhappy rally when his cylinder head failed. And another driver nervously hoping to keep going was the young Brazilian Champion Sady Bordin, whose self-prepared and unsponsored Chevrolet Chevette 1.6 Group A car was climbing the field, and was lying tenth at the return to Cordoba on the Thursday evening. This car was running on petrol (giving 90bhp against 130bhp for his more highly tuned car used in National Championship rallies), but was suffering from the poor fuel sold in Argentina.

By now Salonen had increased his lead to well over 12mins and the interest had gone out of the rally, before even halfway had been reached. Only the top three cars were four-wheel drive, turbo-charged machines, and the best Gp A was lying fifth.

A sense of desperation crept into the German camp. If Wiedner dropped out it would be the end of Audi's Championship hopes because Peugeot would then be unbeatable. True, both of them could get a total of 130 points by the end of the season, but Peugeot's six wins would be greater than the five wins by Audi, so Peugeot would win by a tie-deciding rule. It had been different at the Safari when Criticos was alone upholding the Audi's honours. Then the works team was at the swimming pool and Criticos battled on alone,now Wiedner was getting the full support. Above him the huge Bell X Twin Turbo Argentine Air Force helicopter thumped through the air, twice the size of the Ecureuil of Peugeot, creating a sinister vibration as it passed.

Salonen and Wiedner swapped fastest times through the day. Brilliant winter sunshine made crews forget the miseries of their wet training period though the washways of the rains remained. It was a day when little significant happened, Reutemann was gradually getting used to the car, changing tyre compounds to see how the car's handling varied. He was still ecstatic about the thought of driving a Grand Prix car on open roads so while the top teams cruised round the route (Mehta still down on power, but without any chance of being caught), the local drivers were still having their troubles. The Renault 12 driver Stillo rolled, continuing but falling behind his rival Torras, and the semi-works Renault 18 of Gabriel Raies retired with differential failure.

Still fighting hard and enjoying every minute was the 19-year-old Bordin, flinging his Chevette through the bends to alleviate the frustrations of the straights. His colleague "Aguia" had front suspension troubles, but continued. Shah was a little happier, passing both Federico West and Bordin to take eighth place.

The final five stages were going to be meaningful for the lower numbers, but for the front-runners the final etape promised little excitement. Using many of the stages from the first etape again, Salonen continued to drive with sense but Reutemann was now attacking hard. He thrilled his fellow countrymen by plunging headlong into the many water crossings, but then had to stop for 2mins when a plug lead failed.

Torras lost time changing his fan belt in a stage with his Renault 12, which enabled Stillo in a similar car to take the lead of the 1600cc Gp A class, but he drove confidently back to the finish at the stadium in Cordoba in seventh place. There he had another, far more serious shock. He was excluded from the results for having a wrong cylinder head, and this put Bordin up to eighth place, second in class behind Stillo.

Both the 240RS cars finished, their drivers wondering whether the effort had been worthwhile but meanwhile at Cordoba airport as the drivers were returning from the prizegiving, an ambulance Learjet was waiting to take the luckless Peugeot drivers back to Europe. Their only cause for rejoicing was that they were alive at all.