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Originally Posted by chunterer
There was some footage a while back of Rohrl taming some beast or other around the Nurburgring. One of those gobsmacking sort of views!
One tarmac ace that seemed to come and go in a flash was Carlo Capone?
Had a few years apprenticship with Fiat and then got a big break in an 037 and won the 1984 ERC, defeating one Henri Toivonen in the process!
Looks like he packed it in after that?
Clearly this guy was a serious talent but anyone know the reasons why he never went on from there?
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As you say, Capone seemed to just disappear off the map after an ERC win that ought to have propelled him into the top flight of a regular WRC drive.
Looking at the Italian version of his Wikipedia entry, and a couple of Italian website articles through the wonders of Google translate, it seems to be a really sad story.
The articles suggest he wasn't the easiest of drivers to work with- former co-driver Luigi Pirollo describes him as '
a loose cannon, difficult, shy, introverted, silent but at the same time unpredictable'.
The outcome was that at the peak of his success in '84, he had a massive bust-up with Lancia, which pretty much ended his career.
The bone of contention apparently was Toivonen- Henri's programme that year was a mixture of an ERC campaign in a Dave Richards-run Rothmans 911, and selected WRC rounds in a works Martini Lancia. When Capone beat Toivonen to the ERC title, only to see his rival offered a full-season Lancia contract, he was apparently very unhappy about it and spoke out in the Italian press, resulting in Lancia giving him the push.
According to the Italian articles, he was also affected by personal tragedies including the death of his daughter, and has suffered major mental health problems.
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https://translate.google.com/transla...a/&prev=search