Rally of the Rideau Lakes was a rally competition held in Smiths Falls, Ontario, Canada. The rally originated from the Silver Lake Rally, a club rally started in the 1960s. Rally of the Rideau Lakes was first held in 1973, and it became part of the FIA World Rally Championship schedule for the 1974 season. The event was considered well-run and it influenced the Canadian Rally Championship, but due to financial problems it was never held again. [1] However, the World Rally Championship returned to Canada in the 1977 season, when the Critérium du Quebec was included in the calendar.
The 1974 Rally of the Rideau Lakes was run from October 16–20, two weeks before the other North American WRC round, the Press-on-Regardless Rally in the United States. The rally consisted of 40 special stages on gravel roads. Of the 51 starting crews, 19 finished the event. Sandro Munari took the win with his Lancia Stratos HF, ahead of Simo Lampinen in a Lancia Beta Coupé. Home country's Walter Boyce placed third in a Toyota Celica. [2]
Rallying is a wide-ranging form of motorsport with various competitive motoring elements such as speed tests, navigation tests, or the ability to reach waypoints or a destination at a prescribed time or average speed. Rallies may be short in the form of trials at a single venue, or several thousand miles long in an extreme endurance rally.
The World Rally Championship is an international rallying series owned and governed by the FIA. Inaugurated in 1973, it is the second oldest of the FIA's world championships after Formula One. Each season lasts one calendar year, and separate championship titles are awarded to drivers, co-drivers and manufacturers. There are also two support championships, WRC2 and WRC3, which are contested on the same events and stages as the WRC, but with progressively lower maximum performance and running costs of the cars permitted. Junior WRC is also contested on five events of the World Rally Championship calendar.
Henri Pauli Toivonen was a Finnish rally driver born in Jyväskylä, the home of Rally Finland. His father, Pauli, was the 1968 European Rally Champion for Porsche and his brother, Harri, became a professional circuit racer.
Martini Racing is the name under which various motor racing teams race when sponsored by the Italian company Martini & Rossi, a distillery that produces Martini vermouth in Turin. Martini's sponsorship program began in 1958 as Martini International Club, founded by Count Metello Rossi di Montelera of Martini & Rossi. The race cars were marked with the distinctive dark blue, light blue and red stripes mostly on white or silver background body cars, but also red or green ones.
Carlos Sainz Cenamor is a Spanish rally driver. He won the World Rally Championship drivers' title with Toyota in 1990 and 1992, and finished runner-up four times. Constructors' world champions to have benefited from Sainz are Subaru (1995), Toyota (1999) and Citroën. In the 2018 season, he was one of the official drivers of the Team Peugeot Total. He received the Princess of Asturias Sports Award in 2020. Sainz founded the Acciona | Sainz XE Team to join Extreme E and competed in the first two seasons alongside Laia Sanz.
Juha Matti Pellervo Kankkunen is a Finnish former rally driver. His factory team career in the World Rally Championship lasted from 1983 to 2002. He won 23 world rallies and four drivers' world championship titles, which were both once records in the series. Both Sébastien Loeb and Sébastien Ogier have since collected more world titles, but no driver was able to repeat Kankkunen's feat of becoming a world champion with three different manufacturers until Ogier matched this achievement in 2020.
The Lancia Stratos HF, known as Lancia Stratos, is a rear mid-engined sports car designed for rallying, made by Italian car manufacturer Lancia. It was highly successful in competition, winning the World Rally Championship in 1974, 1975 and 1976; as well as winning the 1974 Targa Florio, winning the Tour de France Automobile five times and the Giro d'Italia automobilistico three times.
Michèle Hélène Raymonde Mouton is a French former rally driver. Competing in the World Rally Championship for the Audi factory team, she took four victories and finished runner-up in the drivers' world championship in 1982.
The Olympus Rally is an event in the motorsport of rallying. While it has usually been run as a national rally, in 1986–1988, it was a round in the FIA World Rally Championship, the most recent time a WRC rally has been run in the United States and the last in North America until Rally Mexico in 2004.
Markku Allan Alén is a Finnish former rally and race car driver. He drove for Fiat, Lancia, Subaru and Toyota in the World Rally Championship, and held the record for most stage wins (801) in the series, until Sébastien Loeb overtook it at the 2011 Rally Catalunya. Alén's phrase "now maximum attack" became well-known.
The Rally of Poland is a motorsport event for rally cars that was first established in 1921. It is third-oldest rally in the world, preceded only by Österreichische Alpenfahrt and Monte Carlo Rally. The event became a permanent fixture of the European Rally Championship in 1960, except for a few editions held as part of the World Rally Championship.
Hannu Olavi Mikkola was a Finnish champion world rally driver. He was a seven-time winner of the 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland and won the RAC Rally in Great Britain four times.
The 1975 World Rally Championship was the third season of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) World Rally Championship (WRC). 10 events were included on the schedule, including the return to the series of the famous Monte Carlo and Swedish rallies after a one season absence of those events. Both North American events were removed from the schedule however. Other returning entries to the schedule included the Acropolis Rally in Greece, which would become a staple of the WRC circuit to this day, and the Rallye du Maroc.
The 1974 World Rally Championship was the second season of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) World Rally Championship (WRC). Due to the worldwide oil crisis, it was significantly reduced from its inaugural season, consisting of 8 events versus the previous 13 events. Notably absent were the Monte Carlo and Swedish rallies, though these would return the next year and remain part of the series to this day. However, other rallies such as those in Poland and Austria would never return to the WRC calendar. 1974 was the only year the WRC held two events in North America, though it would mark the last year for both of these events on the world stage.
The 1986 World Rally Championship was the 14th season of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) World Rally Championship (WRC). The season consisted of 13 rallies, including all twelve venues of the previous season as well as the addition of the Olympus Rally. This marked the return of the WRC to the United States and North America, as well as the first world rally to be held on the western side of the continent. The December rally would also be the only WRC event to feature Group B competition in the United States.
The Critérium du Québec was a rally competition that was part of the World Rally Championship from 1977 to 1979. Critérium du Québec was Canada's second WRC event after the Rally of the Rideau Lakes, which was part of the calendar in 1974.
Lars-Erik Torph was a Swedish rally driver. He debuted in the World Rally Championship in 1980 and took his first points at his home event, the Swedish Rally, in 1984. Driving a Toyota Celica TCT, a Toyota Supra 3.0i and an Audi Coupé Quattro, he went on to finish on the podium four times. After just turning 28, Torph and his co-driver Bertil-Rune Rehnfeldt died while spectating the 1989 Monte Carlo Rally, after Lancia driver Alex Fiorio lost control of his Delta Integrale and crashed into them.
The Lancia Delta HF is a Group A rally car built for the Martini Lancia by Lancia to compete in the World Rally Championship. It is based upon the Lancia Delta road car and replaced the Lancia Delta S4. The car was introduced for the 1987 World Rally Championship season and dominated the World Rally Championship, scoring 46 WRC victories overall and winning the constructors' championship a record six times in a row from 1987 to 1992, in addition to drivers' championship titles for Juha Kankkunen and Miki Biasion, making Lancia the most successful marque in the history of the WRC and the Delta the most successful car.
The Scuderia Lancia, which later became the Squadra Corse HF Lancia, is the racing workshop of the Lancia car company, created in 1952 by Gianni Lancia, son of the brand's founder. The Scuderia Lancia officially began competing in motor sports, particularly in rallying, where it distinguished itself in the Carrera Panamericana, the Targa Florio and the Mille Miglia. The team also entered Formula 1 in 1954-1955, without particularly shining. The Squadra Corse bounced back in the World Endurance Championship with three world titles between 1979 and 1981, and in rallying, winning eleven constructors' titles and four drivers' titles between 1974 and 1992. Since the end of 1991, Lancia has ceased all official involvement in motor racing.
The 1974 Rally of the Rideau Lakes(formally the 2nd Rally of the Rideau Lakes) was the fifth round of the 1974 World Rally Championship season. It ran between October 16 and ended on October 20.