Martin Schanche

Martin Schanche
1998: Martin Schanche (left) and his long time arch-rival Swede Kenneth Hansen
Nationality	Norwegian
Born	(1945-01-01) January 1, 1945 (age 72) Trondheim
Debut season	1972
Current team	Retired
FIA European Rallycross Championship
Years active	1977–2001
Former teams	Martin Schanche Racing
Starts	232 of 233 attended
Wins	74
Podiums	118
Previous series
Rallycross, World Endurance Championship
Championship titles
1978, 1979, 1981, 1984, 1991 and 1995.	FIA European Rallycross Championships

Martin Schanche (born 1 January 1945 in Trondheim), a.k.a. "Mister Rallycross", is a former racing driver and Norwegian politician.

Schanche was born in Trondheim, but grew up at the tiny village of Leirpollskogen in Tana, the most northern part of Norway. Today he lives in Drøbak, together with his German-born wife Birgit and their daughter Melissa. Martin Schanche has also two other children from a former marriage, a daughter by the name of Elisabeth, and a son named Martin junior.

He started his racing career rather late, only in 1972 when he was already 27 years old. Due to his attacking driving style he was quickly nicknamed "Villmannen fra Tana" ("The Wild Man from Tana") by his fellow Norwegian competitors. In 1975 he won a silver medal in the Norwegian Ice Racing Championships. Between 1976 and 2001 he competed in Rallycross, and became the FIA European champion of 1978, 1979, 1981, 1984, 1991 and 1995, as well as the vice-champion for another eight years. With his 74 main category wins Schanche is still yet the undisputed record holder concerning the amount of overall victories in rounds counting towards the FIA European Championships for Rallycross Drivers. Beside his rallycross campaigns and four World Sports Car seasons he was a starter of the 1980 Rally Sweden, the 1982 Rally of Great Britain, and failed to set a new track record in the 1984 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC), due to a flat right front tyre.

Since retiring from motorsport he has embarked on a second career as a municipality politician in Frogn for the Progress Party. In 2003 he was the subject of a lot of nationwide attention after he slapped the chin of his political opponent Torgeir Micaelsen of the Labour Party at the end of a school debate in Drammen because Micaelsen, during the debate and in front of the public, had called him a coward. That attention made him an often imitated character in Norwegian radio. As of 2006, he also has been working as a consultant for Prodrive on the work of Subarus WRC-cars. While active in rallycross, Schanche himself engineered transmissions and differentials for his cars. His company later on manufactured parts and modified parts for rally- and rallycross-cars.