Augusto Mendes was killed in an accident during the sixth special stage of the 22º Rallye de Portugal Vinho do Porto, the 25-kilometer long Serra da Lousã stage, when the Opel Kadett GSI he was driving left the road on a downhill section. The car was precariously hanging on the edge of a seventy-meter deep ravine; when Mendes undid his safety belts to get out, the balance tipped the car into the void. Mendes was drowned in a creek at the bottom of the ravine and died on the way to the hospital; his co-driver, Victor Bento, suffered minor injuries and resumed racing activities some months later.
Augusto Mendes had his debut in his new Opel Kadett GSI just twenty days before the Rallye de Portugal, then a round of the World Rally Championship, winning his class in the Rally das Camélias, but after the end of the event he was desqualified.
Rally fatalities peaked at the start of the 1989 season, when five competitors lost their lives in the first three rallies of the World Rally Championship. First occurred the accident of Belgians George Mignot and Bernard de Lathuy who died on 02 January 1989 during reconnaissance for the Swedish Rally; three weeks later Lars-Erik Torph and Bertil-Rune Rehnfeldt were killed during the Rallye de Monte-Carlo, being struck by the Lancia Delta Integrale of Alessandro Fiorio-Luigi Pirollo. The next round of the season, the Rallye de Portugal, was marred by Augusto Mendes' fatal accident.
Three years later, almost in the same place, during the 6th special stage Serra da Lousã of the 1992 Rallye de Portugal another fatality happened, when the Citroën driven by Rui Madeira crashed into a crowd, killing one spectator.
R.I.P
