The rewarding, testing and unforgiving roads of Mallorca provided a mighty challenge to the 150 cars and crews who enjoyed the Trofeo Baleares in March. Based near the capital Palma, four days provided competitors with 11 stages and a race-circuit finale.<\/p>\n
By far the most spectacular stage was Sa Calobra on the third day. This was a steep narrow road, at times unprotected by barriers of any sort, which clung to the edge of a precipice and rose from sea level to 800 metres over 8 kilometers.<\/p>\n
1977 Le Mans winner, Jurgen Barth, was the overall winner and displayed a complete mastery of the challenge, leading home World Rally Champion Walter Rohrl in a one\/two for Porsche 911s. Coping well with the often-narrow roads were John and Jan Bosch in their Ferrari Daytona LM displaying very precise car control with the big machine.<\/p>\n
Dick Waaijenburg suffered a lack of brakes on his Mustang, \u201cnot what you need here!\u201d whilst David Franklin suffered from flu and a lack of gears on his example. Keeping the cars on the tarmac was a basic requirement and steep drops beckoned the unwary. One Porsche 911 left the tarmac and landed nearly ten metres below road level.<\/p>\n
Mallorca in March is free of traffic and the roads provide some ideal driving experiences, the Trofeo Baleares deserves competitors\u2019 closer attention and wider participation in 2004.<\/p>\n
Submitted by Peter Collins<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The rewarding, testing and unforgiving roads of Mallorca provided a mighty challenge to the 150 cars and crews who enjoyed the Trofeo Baleares in March. Based near the capital Palma, four days provided competitors with 11 stages and a race-circuit finale. By far the most spectacular stage was Sa Calobra on the third day. This was a steep narrow road, at times unprotected by barriers of any sort, which clung to the edge of a precipice and rose from sea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":698595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[260,13063],"tags":[432,15234],"class_list":["post-459966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-car-events","category-vintage-car-racing","tag-events","tag-events-vintage-racing"],"yoast_head":"\n