At 62, Walter Röhrl is still winning
PETER BLEAKNEY FOR THE TORONTO STAR
In the fog and the rain, other drivers would pull over and let legendary rally ace Walter Röhrl lead. They just felt safer doing it that way.
At 62, legendary rally driver Walter Röhrl doesn't appear to be slowing down.
Earlier this month in the Spanish town of Lloret de Mar, Röhrl and co-driver Peter Gobel drove a 1981 Porsche 911 RSR to victory in the FIA European Rally Championship for Historical Cars.
Röhrl doesn't look like your typical racing legend. At well over six feet and as gangly as a newborn colt, he bucks the trend of compact physicality that seems to favour people in this business.
I sat next to Röhrl at a recent Porsche press dinner and discovered that not much about this reserved Bavarian's extraordinary career in rally and road racing can be described as typical.
Highlights of his resumé include a 1974 European Rally Championship, two World Rally Championships (1980, 1982), four Monte Carlo Rally wins with four different marques, 420 WRC stage wins, a Pikes Peak hill climb record that stood for 10 years, and numerous road racing victories.
In 2000, the French elected him Rally Driver of the Millennium. Niki Lauda calls him a "genius on wheels."
At 18, Röhrl was an avid ski racer, and drove to the slopes with a ski buddy who owned a car. Röhrl would often take the wheel on these snowy passes, and his friend became increasingly impressed with Röhrl's natural car control. So much so that he convinced him to enter a rally, supplying him with a rear-drive Ford Capri.
"I'd never raced a car before. It was very snowy and icy and the Capri had no traction. Yet I was passing Porsche 911s and Renault Alpines, wondering why they were all driving so slow." If the engine hadn't blown near the end of the race, he would have won.
His friend sponsored him five times over the next three years, and after each race he wrote to the local papers stating, "Walter Röhrl is the best race driver in the world and somebody had better sign him."
Ford did in 1971.
Röhrl's first WRC win came in 1973 at the Acropolis Rally while driving for Opel. On one particularly greasy tarmac stage, the drivers behind Röhrl consistently saw two long black strips before each corner and figure he'd gone off.
"I'd throw the car sideways 50 metres before the bend and it was perfect every time," Röhrl said with a laugh as his hands worked the imaginary steering wheel that hung in mid-air above his plate of Portuguese seafood.
Along with his driving acumen, Röhrl had another ace up his sleeve: incredibly good memory. "After three passes on a stage, I would have every corner memorized. No other driver could do that."
Of course, Röhrl has had his fair share of incidents. While leading the San Remo Rally by eight minutes, the transmission started making bad noises.
"I was thinking about where and when we could change the transmission, then missed a corner. We flew off the road, fell 50 metres, landed on someone's roof and slid off nose first into the yard. And the people weren't home because they were up watching the race!"
I asked Röhrl what was the scariest car he'd driven. "The scariest was also the best: the 1983 Lancia 037." This rear-drive, 325 hp mid-engined Group B rally car was "beautifully precise, but with only a few thin tubes and some plastic in front of you. If you crashed you were dead."
Indeed, after several driver and spectator deaths in the mid-80s, the infamous Group B, or "Killer B," rally cars, as they were known, were banned. Horsepower dropped by 50 per cent. "After that, they weren't real race cars."
Röhrl decided to retire from WRC, but not before setting a Pikes Peak hill climb record in a specially prepped 600+ hp Audi Sport Quattro S1 on July 11, 1987. The record stood for 10 years, and arguably still stands, as it was broken only after parts of the route were paved.
Röhrl has been working for Porsche since 1993 as a development/test driver and public relations figurehead. He puts in about 150 days a year, but he tells us it's time for him to slow down.
"I've been very lucky in my life." he says, waving his hand and looking gratefully up at the ceiling. "Forty years in motorsport and everything is still straight."
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