Elatia stage in the Greece round of the World Rally Championsihp has a place in the history books being the stage where Marko Martin and Michael Parks bonnet famously popped up mid stage.
Marko Martin had joined the Ford World Rally Team in 2002 and had led much of the Acropolis Rally Greece that same year but a shredded tyre was to drop him 3′ 30” and put him out of contention.
Heading into the Acropolis a year later in 2003 Marko Martin was still to win a round at the top level of the sport and was determined to rectify it.
Martin started the rally well. With loeb and McRae hitting problems early Martin was starting Elatia – Zeli the 5th stage of the first leg of the event Martin held a slender 1.4 second lead over his team mate, a surprisingly hard charging Francois Duval. The stage was going as normal until around half way when the crew hit a compression and a the bonnet of the car flew up. Rather than losing time stopping to fix the bonnet back down the Martin and Park pressed on. Martin could barely see 40 to 50 meters ahead below the bonnet and had to rely fully on his pace notes. The lack of visibiltiy wasn’t the only problem however, with the bonnet blocking the roof vent resulting in the car becoming unbearably hot.
The sight of Martin and Park driving the stage with the bonnet up has become an iconic image and amazingly only cost hime 6 seconds to stage winner Harri Rovanperä, Martin went on to claim the first of his 5 WRC victories with Park along side.