Group C heroes pick their highlights

Klaus Ludwig

1985 Norisring Trophae - Porsche 956

Norisring was always a special place for me - I won a lot of races there - so I'd have to pick one of those wins as the best moment from my time in Group C. In 1985 I didn't have a drive, but I really wanted to do the race. I found a car, one of the first customer 956s, and found my own sponsors. Kremer ran it, but I didn't even have an engineer - I engineered it myself. Everyone was laughing at me for racing this really old car, but I won the fucking race. There were a lot of good cars there. Stefan Bellof was in a Brun car and Jochen Mass was with Joest, and there was a Lancia too. That old car didn't jump around so much on that bumpy track - maybe it was because the chassis had gone soft. That was a cool victory.

Hugh Chamberlain

1989 Coupe de Spa - Spice-Cosworth SE89C

It has to be winning the World Sports-Prototype Championship at Spa in 1989. We had won the Group C2 teams' title at Donington Park and we went to Spa with a healthy lead in the drivers' points, but we still needed a good result with Fermin [Velez] and Nick [Adams]. The problem was we'd fucked up big time, although we didn't know it at the time.

After the race at Donington, [technical delegate] Charlie Whiting had decided the thing he was going to check was the capacity of the tank, but we hadn't needed to fill up through practice and qualifying at Spa. We got onto the grid and there was fuel pissing out through the top gasket.

As the rest sat on the grid we were ripping the top of the tank off, but it wasn't obvious where it was coming from. Either it had a hole in the tank or the top gasket hadn't sealed. We resealed the top gasket, but because we were not allowed to refill the tank we had absolutely no idea how much fuel was left in the car. We'd lost anything from five to 15 litres and we knew it was going to be tight on fuel anyway.

The drivers were under instruction to short-shift and cut the revs. Fermin was in the car at the start and went like a bat out of hell. Nick was screaming at me to slow him down, but he wouldn't take any notice. Fermin got the car up to something like second in C2. He came in all smiley and I pinned him to the wall with his little legs dangling a foot off the ground.

Chamberlain's Spice crew would become C2 champions in 1990 © LAT

Nick had to go out and save fuel. He would come past the start-finish line and knock it out of gear and would snick it into second when he went around La Source and managed to retain our second place, which was more than adequate.

The funny thing is that everyone else was saying, 'If Chamberlain is struggling with fuel, we'll have to back off as well.' There were about five cars that seemed reluctant to overtake us. One did finally overtake near the end, so with one lap to go I asked Nick if he was on reserve yet. When he said no, I told him to give it hell and get the place back.

The remarkable thing was that we probably did the whole thing on a lot less fuel than everyone else and no one knew about it except us, but we finished second and won the championship.

That evening Mr Adams came up with a famous quote. He can speak about as much French as he can Lithuanian. He stood on the table in the bar that night and announced to all and sundry that he was champignon du monde. That means 'world mushroom'.

Martin Brundle

1991 - Silverstone Empire Trophy - Jaguar XJR-14

After the throttle cable broke on lap two and we lost nine minutes, I think I unlapped myself three times on the Mercedes and two on the other Jaguar on the way back to third. I drove solo and was out of of energy and minerals at the end because I didn't have a drinks bottle. The XJR-14 was such an amazing car: corners like Copse and Becketts were extraordinary. I crossed the line and I couldn't lift my arm to wave to the crowd. That drive got me the Benetton deal because Tom [Walkinshaw] and Ross [Brawn] were so impressed.

Stuck joins Bell and Holbert on the 1986 Le Mans podium © LAT

Hans Stuck

1986 - Le Mans 24 Hours - Porsche 962C

It has to be the first of my two wins at the Le Mans 24 Hours with Derek [Bell] and Al [Holbert], because I had tried so many times before to win, and then to be on the podium with Porsche and those two guys is one of the most special moments in my life.

Tiff Needell

1990 Le Mans 24 Hours - Porsche 962C

Finishing third at Le Mans in 1990 [with Anthony Reid and David Sears] has to be the highlight of my time in Group C, especially because we did it with a little team that no one expected to do well. The Alpha team was Gary Cummings, who now works for Grand-Am, six Japanese mechanics, a couple of ringers from America and some volunteers down at the old signalling pits at Mulsanne Corner. That was it, excluding the drivers. We had our own rear wing made, which was kind of a halfway house between the long-tail that most people were using and the short-tail that the Brun car used that year. The car wasn't a match for the quick Porsches and we only qualified 20th, but we ran single stints all the way through and didn't have a single problem apart from a cracked windscreen. That was the last year of the old pits, which meant we got to stand on the famous old podium.

Mauro Baldi

1990 Coupe de Spa - Mercedes-Benz C11

The C11 was amazing and my favourite racing car of all time. Eau Rouge was easy flat and I qualified on pole with a lap that wasn't far off a Formula 1 time. Eau Rouge was easy flat, even with 1000bhp in qualifying.

Ray Mallock

1986 - Fuji 1000Km - Ecosse-Rover C286

My favourite memory from that era has to be standing on the podium at Fuji after Marc Duez and I had won our class and clinched the C2 teams' championship for Ecurie Ecosse by one point. We'd gone into that race knowing that we had to beat Spice and we did it. That was a car for which I was responsible for the design concept and much of the detail, as well as the build and development, so I am particularly proud of that achievement.

Group C cars on the original Nurburgring - an incredible combination © LAT

Jonathan Palmer

1983 - Nurburging 1000Km - Porsche 956

Going round the old Nurburgring-Nordschleife in the 956 was something else. Without doubt that was the most scary race as a driver. They were getting airborne and the steering was being kicked and tugged by the bumps. I had to bring the seat forward a couple of clicks and drive it with the arms up behind the spokes holding the steering wheel with my whole body. It was too quick for the track.

Jan Lammers

1988 - Le Mans 24 Hours - Jaguar XJR-9LM

Being in the car at the finish when Jaguar took its first Le Mans 24 Hours win since the 1950s was the most magical moment for me, and then being up on the podium with all the British fans underneath gave me an unbelievable feeling. I'd never experienced it before and I'm sure I never will again.

Franz Konrad

1983 - Fuji 1000Km - Porsche 956

Philippe Alliot had a massive crash in practice or qualifying and we had to work through the night to repair the car with the Kremer team. I was meant to be just a driver, but I helped out the mechanics and didn't sleep at all.

Stefan Johansson

1983 - Nurburgring 1000Km - Porsche 956

That last race on the Nurburging-Nordschleife in the Group C car in 1983 was probably the most outrageous thing it was humanly possible to do in a race car at that time. Keke [Rosberg] did the race as well - he was reigning world champion and considered to be the bravest driver in the paddock, but even he thought it was fucking ridiculous. It was both fun and scary at the same time. It required a huge amount of bravery to go fast around that place. It drizzled for much of the race and we were on slicks on a dampish track, and at that place you never know how hard it's going to be raining at the next corner. It took massive commitment.

Tony Southgate

1986 - Silverstone 1000Km - Jaguar XJR-6

I'd put our first race victory for a TWR-Jaguar Group C car up there with winning the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1988. It was our second year and our first full season, and we'd had a bit of trouble getting cars through 1000km without major problems. Wheelbearings were our Achilles' heel. I remember being so nervous that something was going to break that I couldn't watch and had to go down to our caravan at Copse Corner for a cup of tea. When I got there Sir John Egan [Jaguar's boss] was feeling the same way and was pacing up and down the asphalt there like an expectant father.

Jurgen Barth

1982 - Weissach test track - Porsche 956

Being the first guy to drive the 956 makes me feel special. Everyone knew it was going to be a great car, but it was still amazing to drive it for the first time. It had so much downforce compared with a 908 or 936.

Andy Wallace

1990 - Trofeo Rodriguez Mexico City - Jaguar XJR-11

The final fuel-formula Group C cars were extraordinary, especially in qualifying trim. If you remember, in that race at the end of 1990 it had absolutely poured halfway through - I think a car didn't cross the start-finish line for three minutes at one point - so we had pretty much unlimited fuel afterwards. We drove flat out with maybe 1000bhp all the way to the end. When I got to parc ferme, I didn't want to leave. I knew that when I got out of the car, an era would end.