| August 17, 2006
John Buffum - Audi Rally Racing's Living Legend
Audi. quattro. Those 2 names, when combined, helped re-define performance rally racing around the world.
Prior to the Audi Quattro, all wheel drive was firmly planted in the truck and Jeep world, and certainly not something one might find in a high performance car. Audi was the first manufacturer to successfully introduce all wheel drive to street and racing cars in great numbers. Earlier rally cars suffered from mild to serious traction problems. The Quattro cars, however, had no such difficulties with traction; there was essentially no limit to how much power they could transmit to the ground.
In this day of Audi winning Le Mans with diesel racing cars and DTM races with swoopy-fendered cars looking like a caricature of the real car, we sometimes overlook the roots of our beloved marquee’s racing history.
For those less familiar, first a quick primer on rallying. This form of racing puts driver and co-driver on closed public roads (paved, unpaved, snowy, muddy, wet, dry, forested, desert-like and everywhere in between) in a race against the clock. In European sanctioned events the crew is provided an opportunity to pre-run the exact course (and to create route notes) so that they will know exactly where to go, the types of terrain they will encounter and what to expect come race time. In American sanctioned events a run-through is traditionally NOT allowed, and the route notes are instead provided by the organizer.
Route notes are critical since they are used by the co-driver to keep the car on course. The actual competition is held on 'special stages' which are the closed off roads, but the cars must be able to travel from stage to stage over public roads (i.e. they must be road legal) under their own power.
The Audi Quattro was as dominant in rally racing as any race car has been in any form of racing. In the first years the Quattro was involved it won almost every rally it entered. In fact, it won so many events so handily that teams and drivers were concerned that the sanctioning bodies would outlaw all wheel drive in rallying just as they had done in other forms of racing. It was common for some drivers to sandbag during the events, which is to say they would intentionally slow up on course so they would not win in such a commanding way as to draw negative attention to their superior cars.
By the time Buffum started driving the Audi factory backed A1 Quattro, he had already become one of the sport's best drivers. In 1964, while attending Middlebury College in Vermont, one of John's fraternity brothers talked him into the navigator seat in a time speed distance (TSD) rally which was run in a borrowed MGA. So began the most famous rally career in U.S. motorsports history.
Buffum began driving TSD rallies with his new wife Vicki in 1966, and later on with others throughout the rest of his stay at Middlebury. After graduating college, he enlisted in the Army, and shipped out to Germany for a stint with the Army Corps of Engineers. Given his blossoming interest in rally racing, this turned out to be a perfect location to be stationed. It was in Germany that JBuffum saw all-out World Rallying for the first time. He purchased a Porsche 911T to compete in both regional and international rallies. In 1969, he drove to a 12th place finish at Monte Carlo, sharing the driving chores with American roadracer Steve "Yogi" Behr.
When Buffum's stay in Germany came to an end in 1970 he returned to the USA, but at that time PRO rally racing did not exist in the States. Because he could not get the speed he wanted in TSD events, Buffum tried his hand at IMSA and SCCA roadracing instead. He then went on to form his own racing company – Libra Racing – and competed both in a Mini Cooper and an English Ford Escort. Buffum shared the driving duties with the likes of George Follmer, Steve Behr and Brett Lunger, and had some top 10 finishes in a BMW CSL. Unfortunately he didn't have the right budget (or the right car, which would have been a Porsche Carrera RSR at that time) to break into the winner's circle.
By the mid-70's performance rallying was gaining popularity in the U.S. Even though John and Vicki had divorced in 1974, they continued to run rallies together at that time. 1976 would prove to be a breakthrough year when the duo won two American rallies and one Canadian event. They won the NARRA national championship, and were narrowly defeated by Hendrik Blok/Erick Haugefor the SCCA championship.
It was during this time period also that Buffum’s driving style started to mature. He began to evolve from reckless mode (which had to that point earned him the nickname "Stuff'em Buffum") to a championship, winning style. Buffum became known for his ability to handle the highly variable conditions of a rally course, his photographic memory of roads and turns and most importantly for his ability to drive fast enough to set the fastest time, but with enough sense to keep the car on its wheels long enough to finish the event.
Starting in 1977, Buffum drove factory prepared Triumph TR-7’s and TR-8’s with Doug Shepherd as his co-driver. Together the pair dominated both the SCCA PRO Rally series and the North America Rally Championship until parent company British Leyland dropped out of racing in the U.S. In 1981, they tried running Audi 80 and Peugeot 504 racers, but could not keep up with Rod Millen's factory Mazda RX-7 rally entries.
This all changed in 1982, when Audi supplied Buffum and Shepherd with its new Audi Quattro. Paired with this amazing car, the two became nearly invincible. Millen would go on to get a faster RX-7 which Buffum first countered with a Quattro A2 and then a Sport Quattro S1 to up the ante again. Buffum also ran the occasional rally in Europe where, in 1983, he became the first and only American to win a European Championship event (1983 Sachs Rally in Germany and the 1984 ERC event in Cyprus).
Doug Shepherd eventually moved into a factory driver's role with Dodge, and Buffum hired veteran co-driver Tom Grimshaw. Buffum and Grimshaw won back-to-back-to-back championships, including their undefeated 1987 season. It was during this time that Buffum became the winningest performance rallying driver ever, worldwide. He tallied 104 national championship wins, far surpassing any other rally driver. He retired after that year and became the SCCA PRO Rally series manager, helping the sport maintain its stature through some lean years.
Unsurprisingly, Buffum still drives an occasional rally. He won several Canadian events, and while filling in for stepson Paul Choiniere he won the Wild West PRO Rally in Olympia, WA in 1993! He also subbed and won for Choiniere at the '94 Lake Superior PRO Rally. In September of 1995, Buffum and veteran co-driver Mark Williams shaved more than two hours off the record time in winning the Rally of Incas in Peru in Choiniere's old Audi S2.
John is still involved with rallying, both with Paul Choiniere and the Hyundai car, and with Vermont Sports car. He's currently in California with Paul and the crew from VSC, gearing up for the rally events in this year's X Games.
Career Highlights:
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