Vintage photo of the week (2)

Every picture tells a story – Vintage Rallycross photo of the week 38/2011

Beside the two well-known Rallycross venues at Melk and Fuglau there was another Austrian track for a bit more than a decade, situated in the town by the name of Sankt Veit an der Glan in Kärnten [Carinthia], not for away from Klagenfurt, the sixth largest Austrian city. After refusing a couple of invitations of the organising club MSC St. Veit/Glan to attend one of their events in the previous years in late August 1983 I had a pretty good chance to make it down there without spending a lot of travel money. During the Dutch ERC round at Valkenswaard, the weekend before, I had agreed with the fan club of Belgian Rallycross star François Monten to jump on their bus and to go with those about 50 vociferous people to Sankt Veit. My friend Andy Bentza had booked a hotel room and for the way back home I had an offer to join Belgian mentor Paul Kumpen and his protégé Rallycrosser Ludo Steukers in their fast car, which made the whole journey a couple of hours shorter.

The Rallycross track at Sankt Veit was really inside the town, just a stone throw away from residential buildings, and made use of some parts of an old trotting course. The above picture was taken in a bend of that former horse racing track that offered great views on sideways going cars racing flat out over smooth gravel. Austrian Rallycross legend Franz Wurz made his ex-Hannu Mikkola factory Audi quattro four-wheel drifting lap by lap, using its about 380bhp strong 5 cylinder engine like a virtuoso to please the German guest snapper and his cameras. However, it was all but the best day for “Wurzlsepp” who eventually finished only 9th while overall victory of that Austrian Rallycross Championship round was claimed by his compatriot Andy Bentza in the famous 320+bhp Ellen Betrix Lancia Stratos HF 3.0.