Colin McRae: a hero remembered

You’d got there early, well before the first car arrived, and you’d stood in the middle of that long bend, kicked the shale, and peered over the edge at the tree tops and the drop. The first couple of cars shocked you with their speed, noise and aggressiveness, and then McRae arrived. You caught your breath, knowing instinctively that you were going to see a big off; the car had too much speed, it was too far out of shape, it was, it was… gone, the engine note of the flat-four never having wavered, the maximum width of the bend exploited.

The speed, commitment and style of Colin McRae were mesmerising and made him a hero to rally fans the world over. You knew McRae would show you a car pressed to the very edge of its ability, and occasionally beyond. Prodrive boss David Richards, who gave McRae his break with Subaru, said he’d rather start with a driver with raw speed and knock the edges off, and that’s certainly what he got. In the early seasons, McRae kept the Prodrive bodyshop busy but Richards’ faith was rewarded; the young man from Lanarkshire gave Subaru its first world championship rally win and in 1995 he became the first British world champion. He was runner-up three times and racked up a total of 23 WRC wins.

While McRae’s spectacular speed endeared him to the fans, he could also deliver measured drives. He won the Safari Rally three times and was peerless on the arduous Motu Road stage of Rally New Zealand – 30 miles of loose surface, low-gear corners and curves that demanded extreme concentration.

I got a demonstration of McRae’s close-quarters precision at Monza in 1996. Sponsors’ events and chatting with the press were never a favourite part of the reticent Scot’s job but as soon as the clutch dropped I was incapable of speech anyhow. The Impreza 555 was shod with Pirelli’s new road tyre and a tight, tricky course defined by chunky red and white plastic barriers had been laid out on the main straight. Colin had driven it just once before.

We hit fourth gear before the end of the pit wall, handbraked smartly around it and attacked the course at a speed I wouldn’t have thought possible had we been on hot slicks. Where my foot was going for an imaginary brake pedal in the passenger footwell, Colin grabbed another gear and kept the throttle nailed, and the Subaru drifted and swung inch-perfect around the course, impervious to the sprinkler-wetted sections. Back in the pitlane a minute later, it was all I could do to mutter thanks. Had it been a proper gravel rally stage, I doubt I’d have been able to speak at all.

Thanks for the memories, Colin.