Tulpenrallye 1982

The story of 1982: The 30th edition brought a further set of changes after the rally had not gone ahead in 1981. To make the rally still more attractive to amateurs, it was decided to adopt a format in which the whole rally was run in a single day. Twelve hours were driven in daylight, which brought the costs for competitors down sharply. As part of 500 Years of Jan van Schaffelaar, the Veluwehal in Barneveld was chosen as the rally centre this time, whilst a number of special tests were laid out in the extensive municipality of Barneveld with its many country roads. Once again the rally did not count towards the European Championship, and the great years of the Tulpenrallye, with an international standing of 200 or more competitors, many of them running for a factory, seemed to be over for some time to come. Every effort was made to make the rally as accessible to the public as possible. Spectator information packs were actively sold, at the same time a new source of income for the organisation, allowing the public to visit no fewer than thirteen of the special tests. A number of service points were within reach of spectators as well, so that they could watch the cars being worked on. The Dutch front rank at that moment consisted of Jan van der Marel (Talbot Lotus), Wim Luijbrechts (Mitsubishi Lancer), Henk Vossen (Ford Escort) and Jan Bak (Porsche Carrera), and all of them were naturally on the start line. The organisers had also taken the initiative of encouraging the Dutch car importers to bring foreign drivers competing in cars of their make to Barneveld. Unfortunately this produced only a limited number of competitors. Paul Maaskant and Ruud Oosterbaan gave the Citroën Visa its rally debut, whilst the event also counted towards the French cup for these cars. The sixteen special tests included in the rally all lay in the province of Gelderland and had a combined length of 175 km. The start flag fell as early as seven o’clock in the morning in Barneveld. After a number of tests around Amersfoort — with the Vlasakkers among them, of course — the crews were back in Barneveld at around ten in the morning. After a short rest halt they set off towards Markelo, where the most important part of the rally was run. The central service park here was set up at the well-known discotheque ‘Dika van de Kruusweg’. The finish was at seven in the evening in Amersfoort. The favourite Van der Marel lost three minutes straight away on the second test (Vlasakkers) as a result of a puncture. When he tried to make up for it as this test was run for the second time, it went wrong in the final corner; he was heading for fastest time at that moment. A connecting rod was driven through the engine block, and that was the end for the Talbot Lotus of Jan van der Marel and Bruno van Traa. Henk Vossen and Pie Theunissen took over the lead as a result. They were troubled by the gearbox, however, and decided to replace it (which was done in eight minutes). The new one had its quirks as well and had no 4th gear. On the second Dika special test Vossen struck a tree stump and ended up off the road. He was able to continue in the lead, albeit with damage to the front end, but lost a fair amount of time. Vossen held on to the lead thereafter and looked to be heading for a certain victory before the last test, having a lead of 1 minute and 47 seconds over the Porsche of Jan Bak and André Schoonenwolf at the start of that test. Bad luck struck Vossen and Theunissen on this last test, though. The throttle cable broke and they did not reach the finish. They were therefore given the standard time of exactly four minutes on this test. That meant Bak had to drive this test in 2 minutes 13 at most to become the winner. The Porsche came to the finish of this test in 2 minutes 12; the smallest possible margin. That evening, after the rally, Bak and Schoonenwolf drove their Porsche into the AVRO television studio for a live interview. Vossen and Theunissen finished second, followed by Luijbrechts and Molkenboer. The mixed crew of Dick Waayenberg and Ay Mei Oei, in Jan van der Marel’s former championship-winning Opel Ascona, won the national class. The prize-giving took place that same evening in the Veluwehal in Barneveld.