Tulpenrallye 1986

The story of 1986: The successful formula of the preceding years was developed further by the organising AMAC in this, the seventh edition of the Tulpenrallye it had run. Clerk of the course Kees Stoel had to travel to Japan on business and handed his task over to Wolf Berger for this occasion. Ford Nederland took over the sponsorship from Audi, Gulf was by now called Q8 in the Netherlands, and Bull succeeded Wang computers as sponsor and as provider of the results service. For the first time in the Netherlands, Ford Nederland entered the four-wheel-drive Ford RS200, developed specially for rallying, in a rally, crewed by Stig Andervang and Anja Lieuwma. The Ford had more than 350 bhp and was completely new; Andervang had driven it for half an hour before the rally. Naturally, John Bosch was on the start line as well, with the further developed Audi Quattro A-2. Other Dutch contenders were Jan van der Mare-André Schoonenwolf and Guy Colsoul-Hedi van de Kimmenade, both with an Opel Manta 400. Paul Maaskant started with the Opel Kadett GSi and Peter van Merksteijn with an Audi 80 Quattro. More than fifty foreign crews were on the start line in Barneveld, among them such resounding names as Jens Ole Kristiansen (DK), Berndt Steffansson (S), Tomi Palmqvist (SF), with a fast Audi Quattro A2, and Susanne Kottulinsky (S). The Briton Stuart gave the MG Metro 6R4 its Dutch debut. The entry was stronger still than in 1985, and there were at least eight cars on the start line in the leading group that had to be considered capable of winning the event. The route was broadly comparable to that of 1985, with a start at six o'clock in the morning and the finish in the early evening. At the start at six in the morning it was still six degrees below zero, and the competitors had to scrape the ice off the windows of the cars in the parc fermé. The Vlasakkers special test again covered 30 kilometres and was once more included in the route three times, with the course on the Vlasakkers rather different from that of previous years. Unfortunately, it had not proved possible to obtain permission for the public to visit the tests on the Vlasakkers. Even so, several thousand spectators were on the site. Rallying was still growing in popularity and several tens of thousands of people watched the event. The Barneveld police spoke of 100,000 spectators. Andervang and Bosch were fairly evenly matched and both set a number of fastest times. Bosch won the first test, on the second they set the same time, and after the third Andervang had taken the lead. Andervang started the first run on the Vlasakkers with a lead of sixteen seconds. Andervang's Ford was still fairly new and therefore somewhat vulnerable; the gearbox had already been replaced once early in the event. The new gearbox gave trouble several times as well, and on one of the tests on the Vlasakkers Andervang could use only third gear and lost several minutes as a result. Andervang was fastest on thirteen tests, Bosch on six, and on one occasion they were fastest together. Jan van der Marel again had no luck in the Tulpenrallye and retired with a blown head gasket. Guy Colsoul threw away his second place through a wrong tyre choice on the Harskamp special test, which even left him stuck in the sand. He had to keep topping up the oil in his Opel all day after his sump cracked on a jump on a test early in the morning and could not be repaired. After the finish, at which Bosch and Oosterbaan were honoured as the winners, a good deal of confusion arose. As a precaution, Andervang and Lieuwma were also honoured with champagne in front of the crowd on the finish podium. Bosch was said to have covered the route on one of the tests on the Vlasakkers in breach of the regulations. The pair had not driven a loop of about 500 metres on this test. They themselves probably knew that all day, but at first the rally management took no further action against them. The rumour grew steadily stronger during the rally and after the finish there was a long meeting. It was well after midnight when the organisers issued a bulletin stating that the protest had been upheld and that Bosch was given the notional time on this test, dropping him to fourth place in the final classification. It was very late at night when Stig Andervang was honoured as the winner in the Veluwehal. Hans Poortman and Hans Knobben won the national class.