By Tarek Ramchani
At the end of the Group B era Audi went to America. At the world famous Pikes Peak Hillclimb in the year 1987 they competed with the Sport quattro S1. Audi stayed in the US for the following two years introducing two legendary cars, the 200 quattro Trans-Am and the 90 quattro IMSA GTO. 1988 belonged to Audi as a full factory team joined the Trans-Am series with the 200 quattro. The car dominated the whole season against the local American muscle cars. The drivers were American Hurley Haywood and the Germans Walter Röhrl and Hans Joachim Stuck. In the end an amazing record of eight wins out of thirteen races, after which the SCCA banned AWD cars and non Americans built engines. A year later Audi moved to the demanding IMSA GTO series with a brand new 90 quattro racer. Just like in the Trans-Am series Audi dominated again with the same trio of drivers as in the 1988 SCCA season joined by American Scott Goodyear. The Audi team did not take part at all the early season events and this deficit was the only reason that Audi did not take the championship title, but they did take multiple race victories. Here is a brilliant 25 minutes documentary about this Audi North American domination. Unfortunately the video on YouTube is not complete but it still has amazing footage. Enjoy:
