Gran Canaria – The all-tarmac Rally Islas Canarias, a round of the hotly contested European Rally Championship, is run on a volcanic island 100km off the coast of Western Sahara, so you’ll understand that those parts of the landscape that don’t go straight up, go straight down.
Precision driving is called for and any mistakes are liable to be severely punished – but somehow all the rally gods were smiling on Tomasz Kasperczyk when he overcooked it on SS1 of the 2017 event and his Ford Fiesta RS slid into the rails.
Armco, as we know is designed to pull away from the ground it’s planted in, slowing a crashing car down before allowing it to slide reasonably gently off the road and, at this point, down a sheer cliff.
In this case, however, the Armco held together against all odds, bringing the Fiesta to rest with two wheels on the road and two touching the void, allowing Kasperczyk and his navigator to exit – very carefully! – on the navigator's side of the car.
