And now to the Deutschland Rally where every year a little miracle happens and we are allowed to go and drive on all – well, nearly all – the stages of a full World Championship Rally. And have all the access as if we were real competitors. Here are some of the stories from our people :-

During the Eifel, Jules Notermanns’ DAF 555 prototype had suffered from a brief spell of overheating which had, unbeknown to him, caused the water pump to leak. On the first stage of the Deutschland, the engine overheated thanks to a lack of water and this time managed to seize a piston. This meant that his diminutive Japanese co-driver, Yoriko Sakoda, who had organised her ride through an internet contact was left without the experience for which she had travelled half-way round the world. Fortunately for the Sunday, Fred Walter had a spare seat in his Lancia Stratos and took her along. “She was very quiet” he said, “She said ‘Oooh !’ a few times, but we got through OK”.

Klaus Stöcker had a busy event. In the vineyard stages of the first day he ran out of fuel in his ex-Warmbold TAP-winning BMW 2002 Ti. His service crew were able to get some to him within twenty minutes or so but then the marshals would not let him drive on. He stayed there and watched the whole of the main rally go through. Then on Day Two, after a high leap and heavy landing at Gina in Panzerplatte, the differential unit came away from the body. This was fixed after recovery and he completed the last day.

It was all too easy to overshoot some of the little junctions in the vineyards and with our cars sometimes starting at thirty-second intervals, one man’s mistake often compromised another. This was what happened when Wim Slaats, this time in his familiar yellow Alpine A110, nosed up the wrong bit at one of these junctions. As he was reversing out, the Alpine was struck by … an Alpine A110 ! This was the car driven by Werner Fahnert and, as the damage was not that extensive, both cars were out again on Saturday. Sadly Fahnert’s car retired on Panzerplatte with a broken gearbox.

Fred Walter was out again with his Stratos but this time accompanied for the first two days by John Davenport. Watching JD enter the Stratos caused some unkind fellow to remark that it was like trying to get a quart into a pint pot (for the Metric amongst you, a quart is two pints !). But they fared well and only had one trouble which was a puncture coming off the end of Erzweiler. And one near miss when they came upon the recovery of Ford Fiesta on the last downhill stretch of a stage.

Christian Löffel had early problems with his all new Porsche 924 GT Turbo that blew its head gasket but by some happy chance, in the service park at Bostalsee he had an Almeras Porsche 911 SC on a trailer that was rapidly renumbered and pressed into service.

At the start of the first vineyard stage, a Subaru gravel note car and its crew was waiting to go through after the Slowly Sideways group. The co-driver came up to Markus Schmitt’s Opel Kadett GT/E and asked Markus “What are you doing in my car ?” It was Bruno Berglund who had been in the Kadett when Anders Kullang rolled it on the 1978 Acropolis Rally. Its previous fate did not seem to bother Markus and he Ralf Antweiler were among the most impressive performers from our ranks throughout the weekend.

On its continental debut, Gary Gee’s Opel Manta 400 did not behave itself, losing its clutch after only one stage and its owner was last seen holding some of the offending internals and heading towards the WRC encampment to see if 1980s technology in any way matched that of the 21st Century. He found that it did not !

Wolfgang Prinzing’s usually reliable Saab 96 two-stroke was playing up in Panzerplatte and refusing to run on the uphill sections. The diagnosis was lack of fuel but the cure probably lay in the fuel tank itself, which was not subject to immediate examination and cure.

Even the Metro 6R4 of our guru, Reinhard Klein, accompanied by Martin Kiefer, keeper and restorer of the Metro, finished Saturday looking worried as his clutch had started to misbehave. But after a good meal at the Felschbachof, both car and driver had recovered and made it through the Sunday.

As usual, the SuperSpecial at St Wendel was equally popular with our drivers and the spectators. We all got four laps to the WRC driver’s two and made the most of it. Leon Meijers admitted to fitting old tyres at the rear of his Ford Anglia 1200 to make things more exciting. It was certainly exciting for Mike Golle in the little Trabant 601 RS. They were being passed by Wolf-Dieter Ihle in his Audi Sport Quattro E2 when the Audi backfired and the concussion broke the Trabant’s windscreen ! Incidentally, this Audi is still running on its original aluminium cylinder block for which they have no spare …

In the final stages, Dave Preece’s ex-Llewellin Audi Coupe started to have gear selection problems but still finished as did the ex-Lampinen Triumph TR7 V8 of Steve Rockingham who claimed that, despite all the weather warnings and tyre troubles experienced by the WRC runners, he never had his windscreen wipers on all weekend.

All in all, it was a very successful weekend and, though one could not say that sun smiled on us throughout, the weather was certainly much better than expected even if the display area did get flooded, happily not while we were in it ! Thanks are due to the ADAC organisation under Armin Kohl and Karl Fries for enabling our presence.