Tulpenrallye 1984

The story of 1984: The one-day format from and to Barneveld, which had by now become the more successful, was continued, and the rally was clearly lifted to a higher level. The growing interest in rallying from the media, the public, sponsors and a number of importers as well was an important stimulus. Audi was the event's main sponsor this year. Works driver Harald Demuth acted as zero-car driver in the strikingly impressive Audi Quattro. The Swede Stig Andervang had appeared at the start earlier that year in an old Ford Escort on the Amsterdam BP Rally and had won that event with a remarkably spectacular driving style. On the strength of that success new sponsorship was found, from Ford Nederland, Novotel and Vredestein among others, and Andervang — or 'Stiggie', as his many Dutch fans already affectionately called him — came to the start in Barneveld navigated by the experienced André Schoonenwolf. The entire Dutch top flight was there besides: Van der Marel and Hoes, both in an Opel Manta, Vossen with a Ford, Maaskant with a Citroën, Renger Guliker in his own Porsche and André Jetten, together with Hans Brinkman, in a hired car of the same type. This year the start was as early as six in the morning at the Veluwehal in Barneveld. The rally was decided to a large extent on the Vlasakkers, because this test was included in the route no fewer than three times and accounted for one third of the competitive kilometres (3 x 30 km). The organisers had managed to create a very compact route. Twenty special tests with a combined length of more than 200 km were run within a radius of at most 20 km from Barneveld, between six in the morning and seven in the evening. Besides the Vlasakkers, the other tests on the military grounds on the Veluwe and the interesting tests within the municipality of Barneveld, such as Kallenbroek and the Harselaar industrial estate, were once again part of the route. Van der Marel and Van Traa went off the road at high speed on the second special test already; the Opel rolled over four times and was a write-off afterwards. Andervang won the three tests on the Vlasakkers and with them took the lead in the rally. Vossen's Ford was not running at its best and Maaskant retired halfway through. Renger Guliker could not quite match the pace of Andervang and Schoonenwolf and therefore finished second. Johnny Hoes and Theo Badenberg had to defend the colours of Opel Dealer Team Holland after the retirement of Van der Marel/Van Traa, and did so creditably: they finished third. The official result was published only a few hours after the finish, and the prize-giving took place that same evening in the Veluwehal in Barneveld. The atmosphere during the rally was exceptionally good and the public had turned out in force for the event. Barneveld had become a Tulpenrallye town.