Morning Qualifying – Stig’s Saab Story edition
Stig Blomqvist and Arne Hertz in a Saab 96 at the 1971 RAC Rally of Great Britain.
The first time I stumbled across Lennart “Stig” Blomqvist was in the pages of Car & Driver magazine. After getting smoked by Blomqvist in one of C&D’s Showroom Stock Challenge races, Pat Bedard was sent to Sweden to learn at the feet of the master. It was in this article that I first read about left foot braking and, frankly, my then 12 year old brain couldn’t handle that kind of knowledge. As soon as I got to the part where you apply the brake while staying on the gas to go through turns faster, my pre-teen gray matter went into shutdown mode; Bedard might as well have lectured on astro-physics in Mandarin. Looking back at the article today, I now recognize what he’s trying to get at…and that I lack sufficient skill to replicate it. What are you gonna do? We can’t all be the Stig.
A very young Stig at the 1967 Swedish Rally.
Blomqvist had an outstanding rally career. He broke in with Saab’s factory team in the mid-60′s as the heir apparent to the legendary Erik Carlsson. After a few seasons competing in the Swedish Rally Championship, Stig graduated to international rallies in 1971 and never looked back. Over the next quarter century, Blomqvist built a well-earned reputation as one the world’s greatest rally drivers with Saab and later with Audi, where he won the WRC driver’s championship in 1984. Stig always saved his best efforts for his home country; Blomqvist placed first or second in the Swedish Rally 14 times; Stig also won 8 national rally championships, 5 hill climb championships and 2 touring car championships in Sweden. Even after “retirement”, Stig Blomqvist has never strayed far from competition, winning the unlimited class at Pike’s Peak in 2004 and La Carrera Panamericana in 2009.
Today is the original Stig’s 65th birthday. So, I thought we’d celebrate by looking back at Stig Blomqvist’ 1st international rally victory at the 1971 RAC Rally of Great Britain. Födelsedagen, Stig!
Related posts:
happy birthday Stig!
did they ever find the chimpanzee?
Stig won the 2009 La Carrera Panamericana with the help of his lady co-driver, Ana Goni Boracco of Venezuela. Just saying. Happy birthday, Stig!
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P.S. Ana Goni has a classic rally car collection on display at the David Sutton Rally Car Museum in the UK.
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In a Studebaker?! Those things raced? You've made my day, a rallying Starlight…
They're fairly dominant in the Carrera, thanks to superior aerodynamics.
Studebaker Starlights competed in the original Carrera in the 1950's too.
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Apparently, Studebakers have been quite successful in these races. Of twenty post-1988 Panamericana Races, 16 have been won by Studebakers. See chart at bottom of link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrera_Panamericana
Wow, I've never thought there would be so many to go around, and how good these cars were. And I didn't register the '2009' part the first time and thought it was an old-timey photo (The colour and Stig's aging
should've been a tip…) Knowing they still race now makes it much more impressive!
Note that Mr. Blomqvist had one of the brand-spanking-new V4 cars at his disposal for the '67 Swedish Rally, too.