Where are the Danes?

[Maui J.]

I have been following rally for over 25 years and the consistant supply of top Finnish drivers always amazes me. There seems to be a bottomless bucket of them. Back then there was Mikkola, Alen, Vatanen, Salonen, and not forgetting Pentti of course.
Then there were the Swedes of the same era... Waldegaard, Blomqvist.

So for the next 20 years, one thing that always puzzled me was where were the Norwegians? Their country was right next door to these two powerhouses of world rallying, but until Petter turned up, there was basically nothing. Now Norway has it's own WRC rally, an ex-World Champ, Henning doing his thing, plus a couple of young guns in Mikkelsen and Ostberg making an impression. Norway has defiantly arrived on the world stage.

So I ask the question. Where are the Danes? Denmark is part of Scandivania, isn't it? Is rallying not popular with the Danish? There doesn't seem to be many here on the forum either.

I do remember seeing Henrik Lundgaard in the Corolla at Rally Australia in 2001. I think he picked up the 'Teams' Cup that year. But apart from him I can't remember hearing or reading about another in all these years of following the WRC.

Hello Denmark, haven't you ever looked over the fence and seen how good rallying is?

[pino]

Mate, cars are very very expencive in here, only a few people can afford rallying :( our danish member MikeD will confirm this ;)

[SubaruNorway]

Wasen't there some fee that you didn't have to pay anymore think it was that you had to register the cars as road cars earlier.

[Mihai]

The Danish rally championship was won by a Renault Megane a couple of years ago. You can't expect a driver to compete successfuly in the WRC if he comes from a quite low-level rally championship at home. No offence for the Danes! I always respected Denmark for being such a small nation and still having so many drivers competing in international endurance and/or single-seater racing in the last decade: Kristensen, Magnussen, Watt, Kiesa, Kolby, Bremer and so on. But no successful rally driver since Lundgaard.

[MikeD]

Hello to all (from Denmark :)

First of all I am impressed what some of you know about Denmark - but the main reason for little rally action in Denmark is - like SUBARUNORWAY1 wrote - a huge tax of Rally cars. This tax has just been removed, with effect from the 1. January 2007. Hopefully this will give some more interes in Rally here in DK (eventhough that nationality means absolutely nothing to me).

Besides Lundgaard, we do have a rally driver in Kristian Poulsen who did compete in a Corolla WRC in Rally Germany 2006.

When it comes to motorsport it's all about F1 and Le Mans in Denmark (Due to Tom Kristensen). F1 is hugely popular despite us having only a few (and very slow) F1 drivers. It seems that Denmark is devided in two camps. Those who supporte the finns (Hakkinen, Raikkonen and Kovailainen) and those who support Schumacher/Ferrari.

I know no Rally fans (beside myself) whereas we are 4 F1 fans at my job (out of 15 employees).

[N]

If I'm not mistaken RallyCross was more popular than Rallying in Norway, so that's the reason for such a small number of rally drivers from Norway.

[Viking]

Rally was more or less forbidden in Norway from the early 70`s to the late 80`s (very strong safety rules making it impossible too organize).

[pino]

I know no Rally fans (beside myself) whereas we are 4 F1 fans at my job (out of 15 employees).

You know me now, I live in Denmark ;)

[Jarek Z]

Another Danish driver besides the great Lundgaard is Kristian Poulsen, who was competing in the German championship two years ago. I don't know why he was competing in Germany instead of Danish championship, but he has never been as good as Lundgaard. Here is a photo of Poulsen's Toyota that I took on Lausitz Rallye in 2004:
http://www.rallyonline.pl/ft.php?idg=734&pg_[go]=16

[MikeD]

You know me now, I live in Denmark ;)

Great :D

What is an Italian doing in small Denmark? (The italien food is better, the italien weather is better, the italien women are more beautiful and the italien cars are a lot cool'er than the average VW her in DK)...

[miksu]

Great :D

What is an Italian doing in small Denmark? (The italien food is better, the italien weather is better, the italien women are more beautiful and the italien cars are a lot cool'er than the average VW her in DK)...

women...? no no no no... i have seen from internet some pics with the name nights at danemark or something like that :D :D

[MikeD]

Another Danish driver besides the great Lundgaard is Kristian Poulsen, who was competing in the German championship two years ago. I don't know why he was competing in Germany instead of Danish championship, but he has never been as good as Lundgaard. Here is a photo of Poulsen's Toyota that I took on Lausitz Rallye in 2004:
http://www.rallyonline.pl/ft.php?idg=734&pg_[go]=16

Do you know if it's "Wevers Sport" who is running/preparing his car?

[MikeD]

women...? no no no no... i have seen from internet some pics with the name nights at danemark or something like that :D :D

Well ok, the girls are actually beautifull in Denmark, but I am more into brunettes, so I am more gunning for the Italien and Spanish women :D

[atsiotras79]

I remember Lundgaard in my home rally in Halkidiki in 2000! He was really really fast!!! Easy win against Vovos, Kazaz, Tempestini, Richelmi and Holderied.

[Jarek Z]

Do you know if it's "Wevers Sport" who is running/preparing his car?

For sure the Corolla comes from Erik Wevers, top Dutch rally driver and rally car preparator, but I don't know if Poulsen was renting it or if he bought it.

[Jarek Z]

I remember Lundgaard in my home rally in Halkidiki in 2000! He was really really fast!!! Easy win against Vovos, Kazaz, Tempestini, Richelmi and Holderied.

Yes, Lundgaard also won here in Rally of Poland 2000:
http://www.rallyonline.pl/2005/ft.php?idg=524&pg_[go]=2

He was 30 seconds faster than Janusz Kulig, it was a great rally:
http://www.rallybase.nl/index.php?type=result&rallyid=1171

[FrankenSchwinn]

the italien weather is better, the italien women are more beautiful

italian weather is crap, unless you like looking like a tomato and not being able to sleep because you are too hot. and the women, well, the women they are insane, and most really are not good looking. in denmark you've got a better average of good looking women. trust me, i know!

[jso1985]

Maybe it's also because Denmark's landscape isn't ir "rally friendly"? not saying it isn't beautiful but the flat without forest compared to the ones in Finland/Sweden isn't the kind of rally landscape.
Plus from what I saw there, Danes are much more interested in F1 and touring cars, the DTCC is probably one of the best touring car championships in the world

[Kaps]

Maybe it's also because Denmark's landscape isn't ir "rally friendly"?


But that excuse cannot be used for the only scandinavian nation we didn't mention so far: Iceland!

I, for one, have never heard of any driver from Iceland. And I don't mean just rally.

Years ago I saw on TV they have some crazy series with some sort of buggies or something, running up-hill and that about covers my knowledge of Icelandic motorsports.

[VFTS]

First of all this must be right;
The Scandinavian countries are: Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
The Nordic countries are: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland.

In Iceland they have their own championship and this link show you the results from Rally Reykjavik 2006: http://www.rallyreykjavik.net/index.php/RR/Results

[Maui J.]

Some stats from Rallybase regarding drivers.

Finland 626
Sweden 386
Norway 113
Denmark 44
Iceland 1 (Hafsteinn Adlasteinsson competed and retired in Mazda 323 4WD in 1987 RAC)

I guess having a home event like Finland and Sweden does helps these numbers grow. Norway should gets a boost in a few weeks.

Thanks Tjeerd for the info.

[jonas_mcrae]

First of all this must be right;
The Scandinavian countries are: Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
The Nordic countries are: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland.

In Iceland they have their own championship and this link show you the results from Rally Reykjavik 2006: http://www.rallyreykjavik.net/index.php/RR/Results

4th place Land Rover Freelander LOL

[Maui J.]

First of all this must be right;
The Scandinavian countries are: Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
The Nordic countries are: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland.

In Iceland they have their own championship and this link show you the results from Rally Reykjavik 2006: http://www.rallyreykjavik.net/index.php/RR/Results

Thanks for that VFTS. I did know this actually, I was just being a bit general with my geography, sorry. I think the TV commentators need to study it more though. They always say things like 'the Finnish Rally has only ever been won by 3 non-Scandanavian drivers' or 'Sebastian Loeb is the first non-Scandanavian to win the Swedish Rally'!!!!!!

Seems like a few Brits take their Landrovers over to Iceland for this. Interesting to see a couple of Tomcats as well. Are these from Iceland? Watched the episode of Top Gear where Richard Hammond raced one against a motorised kayak.

[Josti]

For sure the Corolla comes from Erik Wevers, top Dutch rally driver and rally car preparator, but I don't know if Poulsen was renting it or if he bought it.

He probably rented it from Wevers, cause I think the car was also driven by a Dutch driver last year.

[M5]

Denmark is overpopulated compared to the rest of us up in north, and that means that they do not have the same roadnetwork for training. And mors roads are with asfalt, so they do not have the same possibility to drive on gravel, and snow is rare.

But the danes have a better tradition for racing, with Kristensen and so on !

[Benne]

there is one dane that can win championships despite coming from a small rally nation :)