Nuria Viñas Panades was a double winner of the Spanish women’s rally championship, in 1972 and 1973. She also won the Catalan women's championship in 1969, 1971, 1973 and 1975.
Born in Barcelona, she was from a motorsport family. Her brother Jordi was a rally driver who competed as "Jorge Chi" from the mid-1960s onwards.
Her first steps in motorsport were apparently in 1962, when she entered the Rally Femina, which was based around Barcelona. Jordi encouraged her, according to an interview in Mundo Deportivo in 1968. The results for this all-female event are elusive, but her car was a Fiat 850, and she competed in the rally several times, possibly winning in 1963 and almost certainly winning in 1971. The rally was organised by Club 600, a Catalan motorsports club of which Nuria was a member.
Her first rally looks to have been the Rally Invierno in 1963, where she and the SEAT were 36th. Returning to the event, she was 45th in 1964, this time in a BMW. Among her other cars was a Simca 1000, which she used for the Gerona Rally in 1965. She continued to switch between the SEAT, BMW and Fiat in 1966, with the Fiat being the quickest; she was twelfth in that year's Rally de las Tres Cuestas in it. She concentrated on smaller cars in 1967, changing between the SEAT and the Fiat. The Fiat was once again the best car for her, giving her a season's best of 18th in the Rallye Costa Brava. In the same car, she was 23rd in the Rallye de Invierno, 19th in the Rallye Gerona and first lady in the Trofeo Maite Trepat and the Barcelona-Andorra Rally. She returned to the Barcelona-Andorra event in 1968. With the BMW and her regular co-driver Immaculada Juncosa, she won the Circuito de Llobregat Rally that year.
At the same time, she appears in hillclimbs in Catalonia. Her first notable event was the 1964 Circuito Garraf, a hillclimb outside Barcelona. She drove a SEAT 600 and won both the novices' and the women's class.
She and her brother sometimes entered the same events, althought they never shared a car. Both took part in the 1966 Puig Major hillclimb, both in Fiat-Abarth 850s, but in different classes.
The siblings competed against each other again in the 1967 Montseny climb. Nuria, in a Fiat-Abarth 850TC, was 40th overall, and Jordi was unplaced in his 1000cc Abarth. The following year, he had the upper hand, finishing 28th to Nuria's 43rd. She was driving a SEAT 600 again this time.
The following year, she was the Catalan ladies' champion in hillclimbs and 32nd in the main championship.
As well as rallies and hillclimbs, she also raced on circuits, and was the first woman to participate in the Barcelona 6 Hours race, held at the Montjuich Park street circuit. Although she never raced single-seaters, she did compete at a Grand Prix weekend at least once, driving a little SEAT in the one-make Copa SEAT that ran as a support in the early 1970s.
She is most associated with a BMW 2002 Ti, and was especially effective in the women-only rallies organised in Spain in the early 1970s, but she first appears in the Spanish Touring Car Championship in it in 1970. She won her class in it in the Puig Major hillclimb, then a round of the championship. She is recorded as the winner of the 1971 Rally Femina in the BMW, and the same year, she did at least two rounds of the Sapnish Touring Car championship, finishing 16th at Montjuich and ninth at Guadalope. Her car was a Group 1-spec machine. She entered the Barcelona 3 Hours and was fifth in class. Hillclimbs were very much still a priority too, and she won her class in the La Rabassada event, after finishing second in Group 1 at Puig Major.
Her first Spanish women's championship win was also in this car. Nuria won the 1972 Rallye Femenina Saibil and the Rallye Primavera, with Maria Angeles Pujol, her regular co-driver in the middle part of her career.
Her second women's championship in 1973 came off the back of six wins in all-female events, co-driven in the BMW by Ana Maria Garreta. She was more than twenty points ahead of her nearest rival, Marisol Rodriguez Mesa, who had only picked up one class win in the Rally of Spain, in her SEAT. Nuria's only non-win was her eighth place in the Rally Primavera-Las Palmas, which must have been a disappointment after her 1972 victory. As well as rallying, she continued to campaign her Group 1 BMW in Spanish Touring Cars, racing at Montjuich for the 2-Hour National event and finishing tenth.
The women's championship was in something of a decline in 1974, with smaller entry lists and more events running as a class in mixed rallies. Nuria only entered her BMW in one, the Jerez women's rally, which she won in the BMW, ahead of that year's champion, Yolanda. Nuria had to make do with another Catalan women's motorsport championship, which she claimed ahead of hillclimb driver Beverley Pugh.
Hers was a lengthy career, and she was still active in motorsport in the late 1970s, driving a Ford Escort in hillclimbs in Catalunya. She was 22nd in the 1978 Montseny hillclimb, returning to one of her earliest regular events. The following year, she made a last visit to Puig Major, finishing 51st.
She won a final women's rally, the Rallye Femenino Adosinda, in 1979. Her car was the Escort and she was navigated by Ana Maria Garreta, who had sat alongside her for several years.
She died in 1998.
(Image copyright Mundo Deportivo)
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