The ninth round of the 1988 Sports Car Club of America-sanctioned Trans-Am series, for hugely powerful modified saloons, took place at the short Connecticut venue of Lime Rock Park – and tempers flared between the SCCA rulemakers and the dominant Audi team, which had won six of the first eight rounds with its four-wheel-drive, five-cylinder turbo 200 Quattros and the combined talent of Le Mans winners Hurley Haywood and Hans-Joachim Stück and World Rally legend Walter Röhrl.
MAR 31st 2016
Video: ‘Full Throttle’ – Epic Trans‑Am Monsters Battle At Lime Rock
After round seven, at Brainerd, the Audis were hobbled with ballast to slow them against the rival Oldsmobile Cutlass, Mercury Merkur and Chevrolet Corvette metal. That didn’t work – Stück won at Meadowlands next time out – so more ballast was added to the potent German machines. And it prompted Röhrl to liken his car to a truck, even though he set the third-fastest time in qualifying.
The drastic measures taken by the SCCA to peg back the Audis had the desired effect in the race, with Haywood and Röhrl coming home a distant fourth and fifth behind the winning Merkur XR4Ti of defending champion Scott Pruett, the Corvette of Darin Brassfield and the Cutlass of Irv Hoerr. Look out, too, for Hollywood icon Paul Newman, who qualified his self-run Nissan 300ZX in fifth place.
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