John Brooks Remembers – The Birth Of Group C – 40 Years Ago & More News Here – Upjobsnews

This story is a day late being (re-)published – But 18 April 2022 marked the 40th anniversary of the very first race of the Group C Era with the new and soon to be iconic class introduced for the 1982 World Sportscar Championship that debuted at Monza on 18 April 1982 and ran through until 1993.

We don’t have that first race in our archive but we do have the following race, as it happens the very first race as an accredited photographer for John Brooks – and the debut of the Porsche 956 into the bargain.

Happy Anniversary Group C.

In life one encounters certain days that have a special meaning: some, like Christmas or New Year are common to all, others, like the anniversary of your birth are more random and not of your own choosing. Then there are those that have meaning because they are associated with important events in your life.

16th May is such a date for me. It is the day I got married and though, like most men, it slips my mind from time to time, the date will always be the most significant for me until I such time as I shuffle off this mortal coil. But not only does 16th May mark my wedding anniversary, it also was the day, 30 years ago, when I first covered an International Sportscar race as a member of the media, or press, as it was known back then. I had completed a full season of Formula Three trackside in 1981, following Jonathan Palmer and West Surrey Racing’s charge to the title. However, it was endurance racing that was my passion and somehow, back in May 1982, I persuaded Silverstone that I was worthy of a press pass. Standards were low back then.

1982 saw the brave new world of Group C emerge and the Silverstone Six Hours was the second round of the chase for the two titles on offer that year, the World Endurance Championship and the World Endurance Championship for Drivers. It was also the first race for one of the truly great sportscars of any era, the Porsche 956.

The change of formula meant that the field was a bit of everything, a bewildering cocktail of rules and classes that must have strained the humour of the scrutineers. There were pukka Group C cars, grandfathered Group 5 and 6 racers from previous years, Grand Touring, IMSA GTX and IMSA GTO, proving that the multi class races of the current era are nothing new.

The entry list was pretty good, as 39 cars lined up on the grid for the start. Silverstone often attracted cars wishing to complete a proper race shakedown prior to Le Mans and 1982 was no exception. At the sharp end was the latest supercar from Porsche – the 956, chassis 001. Absolutely state-of-the-art, very elegant in Rothmans colours and driven by Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell. The opposition in Group C would come from a Ford C100 Cosworth (Manfred Winkelhock/Klaus Ludwig); the Rondeau M382 that had won the first round at Monza (Henri Pescarolo/Gordon Spice) plus the brand new M482 for Jean Rondeau and Francois Migault. A Lola T610 (Guy Edwards/Rupert Keegan) and a pair of Sauber C6s for Hans Heyer/Hans Stuck and Walter Brun/Siegfried Müller completed the Cosworth DFL brigade.

Other notable Group C entries came in the shape of two Nimrod Aston Martins under the charge of Ray Mallock/Mike Salmon and Bob Evans/Geoff Lees; the Dome RC82 for Chris Craft and Raul Boesel; the Grid S1 for Emilio de Villota and David Hobbs; the WM Peugeot P82 (Roger Dorchy/Jean-Daniel Roulet/Michel Pignard) and the venerable De Cadenet Lola for Mike Wilds and Bernard de Dryver. Perhaps the biggest Group C challenger to the 956 would come from the Joest Racing Porsche 936C with Bob Wollek and the Martin brothers, Jean-Michel and Philippe.

Other highlights on the grid as far as I was concerned were the Mazda RX-7 (Yojiro Terada/Pete Lovett) and the splendid Porsche 935-78/81 of Momo Moretti and Mauro Baldi.

All of these fine cars were supported by various Porsches and BMW M1s plus two Lancia Beta Monte Carlos, one driven by no less than Mark Thatcher. His mother was a bit busy at that point with some pesky Argentinians on the Falkland Islands but her talents did not seem to rub off on him… and then there were also the two Martini-sponsored Lancia LC1s.

Ah, the Lancia LC1 – as fine an example of the law of unintended consequences as you will find in motorsport. In order to bolster grids for the first season of Group C the FIA allowed in cars complying to the old Group 6 rules to allow drivers to compete for the Driver’s title. The presence of cars running to the old rules was certainly justified – the scheduled rounds at Mugello and Brands Hatch were both postponed – and no one was really ready until May and round 2. Silverstone would be the first real test of the rules.

Lancia, however, turned this concession on its head by building a brand new Group 6 car, the LC1, with the aim of getting the bragging rights associated with one of the World titles without going to the effort and cost of building a proper Group C car. The Martini-sponsored team had a crack squad of drivers (Riccardo Patrese/Michele Alboreto and Piercarlo Ghinzani/Teo Fabi) and were looked after by a crew that had won titles in the past and could surely rattle the Porsche’s cage.

The battle between the two factories was keenly anticipated but in reality the outcome, barring disasters for the Italians, had already been decided. Group C had at its core a fuel efficiency formula. The top cars had a limit of 600 litres of fuel for 1000 kilometres; however Porsche arrived at Silverstone to find that the race was going to be run to the “traditional” six hours rather than a specific distance. Being a fast circuit, the actual ground covered was expected be over 1100 kilometres. Well, you can hear the rationalisation: it would be the same for everyone and anyway the “tradition” that had lasted since at least 1976 was more important than some trifle about fuel consumption. You can almost taste the pink gin having a lump or two added in the BRDC Clubhouse while the decision was mulled.

However, Lancia’s pocket rockets were not constrained by such limitations: the Group 6 regulations that governed them made no mention of how much fuel they could burn. So for them it was turn up the wick and devil take the hindmost. With it being doubtful that Porsche could make the end of the race without some serious cruising, the Italians could only defeat themselves.

Rubbing salt into the Porsche camp’s wounds was the bizarre limitation on the number of pitstops a Group C entry could make. Some bright spark came up with the idea that there should only be five refuelling stops during the race and that meant that to use up the full allocation of 600 litres, each stop had to see 100 litres taken on board. In the case of a puncture, say, 75% into a stint, the team had a choice of just changing tyres and making an additional fuel stop later or risk running out of petrol at the conclusion of the race while still having part of their allocation left unused. Naturally, this restriction did not apply to Lancia…

So what of the other Group C contenders, powered by Cosworth? Well, all was not well in that camp either. As was succinctly put by Janos Wimpffen in his masterwork “Time and Two Seats”:

“Most of the others using the 3.9-litre DFL were beginning to have serious problems with internal shaking. Motor mounts were breaking, cracks appeared in the chassis, drivers’ dental work shook loose, and the seismometers at Oxford were jiggling. The Saubers and the works Rondeau were particularly affected.”

Arriving at Silverstone on the Sunday morning, I would have seen the 956 on pole by over 1.5 seconds, courtesy of a demon lap by Jacky Ickx. So the race made absolutely no sense… the Lancias disappeared into the distance from the first lap; the 956 – hobbled by the fuel situation – trundled round some 10 seconds a lap off the pace. It was all a bit bizarre for those of us watching from the sidelines, I would hate to think what Ickx or Bell made of it.

Of course in the face of their overwhelming advantages, the Italians did their level best to throw the race away. Ghinzani/Fabi’s example was leading but suffered engine failure. The Patrese/Alboreto car had a number of problems: a collision with another competitor, a rear puncture and a flat battery, but despite all these obstacles the LC1 ran out a clear winner with a margin of 3 laps over the factory Porsche.

Further down the road was the Joest 936C, to complete the podium.

One big difference between then and now is that even as a member of the press I had little or no clue why events were unfolding as they did, even if I could actually see what was happening. Like everyone else I had to wait until later in the week for Autosport or Motoring News to explain, assuming that they could find out what went on. There were no press officers attached to the teams or if there were, they did not trifle with the likes of me. That started to change the following season when Rothmans Porsche appointed our old friend Mark Cole to the role, a move that was long overdue. We were all beholden to the likes of Michael Cotton or Andrew Marriott to bring us wisdom, and to their credit they usually did.

The antidote to this monopoly of information held by publishing giants such as Haymarket, has been the internet and sites like this one. These days it is the printed weeklies that face an uncertain future of declining circulations and advertising revenue, while the online army grows ever more professional (at least in certain quarters). In fairness, back in the day, the magazines contained full reports in great detail of the events that were covered; they were broadsheets as opposed to today’s tabloid efforts.

Looking through the photos that I still have from the event, other things also stand out. Refuelling was carried out with little or no regard for the safety or protection of the crew, as can be seen, here. The Lotus #74 being refuelled would give a contemporary pit marshal a heart attack. Just about everything is wrong, from the lack of protection from the potential fire hazards to the underage lad on the bottle, yet somehow we all survived.

The pit lane was something of a zoo, with anyone and everyone milling about during the race as the teams struggled with tyres and hoses. It was a more relaxed time, drivers being more accessible and yet they were generally left in peace to get on with the job in hand.

Reading the contemporary reports it is clear that while the Group C concept was highly regarded, the execution of the poorly thought-out rules was not. As Andrew Marriott put it in the following month’s Motor Sport, “As the regulations stand now, the WEC can hardly be described as racing; an economy run would be more appropriate.”

Yet we look back now and regard the Group C time as a golden era – hindsight is a wonderful thing.

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