Colin McRae
The son of five-time British Rally Champion Jimmy McRae and brother of rally driver Alister McRae, Colin McRae was the 1991 and 1992 British Rally Champion and, in 1995, became the first Briton to win the World Rally Championship Drivers' title.
McRae's Subaru won the World Rally Championship Constructors' title three times in succession in 1995, 1996 and 1997. After a four year spell with the Ford World Rallye Sport team, which saw McRae win nine events, he moved to Citroën World Rally Team in 2003 where, despite not winning an event, he helped them win the first of their three consecutive manufacturers' titles. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to motorsport in 1996. McRae died in a helicopter accident in September 2007 which also claimed the life of his son as well as two family friends.
Personal and early life
McRae was married to Alison, and had two children, Hollie and Johnny. McRae moved to the principality of Monaco in 1995, partly through his friendship with David Coulthard. However, as his young family grew up, he spent more time back at his home in Lanarkshire - accepting the higher tax liability of living in Scotland. The couple bought the 17th century Jerviswood House.Career
Early career
Colin McRae began his competitive career in motorsport riding trial bikes at an early age, although the Scot was more interested in four wheeled machines rather than two wheel bikes. At the age of sixteen, through the Coltness Car Club, McRae discovered autotesting, he soon traded his bike for a Mini Cooper and started competing. A year later, however, he began to negotiate with another club member to use his Hillman Avenger for the Kames Stages, a single–staged rally venue not far from McRae's home, the Scot finished the event fourteenth; first in his class although he had ran most of the event in a higher position.In 1986, driving a Talbot Sunbeam, McRae entered the Scottish Rally Championship and soon made a name for himself with his speed and exciting style of driving. His driving style drew many comparisons to Finnish ex-World Rally Champion Ari Vatanen, who McRae had always idolised. He soon progressed to a Vauxhall Nova, and then onto a Ford Sierra XR 4x4. His first WRC event was the 1987 Swedish Rally behind the wheel of his Nova, and again two years later, driving the Sierra and finishing 15th overall. Later that year, he finished 5th overall at Rally New Zealand in a rear wheel drive Sierra Cosworth. 1991 saw McRae turn professional as he was signed by Prodrive boss David Richards to his Subaru team in the British Rally Championship for an annual wage of approximately £10,000. McRae was British Rally Champion in both 1991 and 1992, soon graduating to the Subaru factory team at World Rally Championship level. 1992 also saw Colin McRae make his début in the British Touring Car Championship, with a one-off appearance for the Prodrive-run BMW factory team at the Knockhill round. In the last of the three races of the event, McRae collided with Matt Neal. Race officials found McRae to have caused an avoidable collision and subsequently disqualified him.
World Rally Championship
1993-1998: Subaru
On his promotion for 1993, McRae initially drove the Prodrive-built Group A Subaru Legacy alongside Finns Hannu Mikkola and Markku Alén. McRae then won his first WRC rally in the car at that year's Rally New Zealand. It was also the first rally win for the newly formed Subaru World Rally Team, shortly before the Legacy was due to be pensioned off in favour of the new Subaru Impreza 555. Such were the rising fortunes of his young Subaru factory team as they competed against the frontrunning TTE ran Toyotas, aided by the latter team's exclusion from the championship after the 1995 Rally Catalunya where it was discovered that the Japanese team had been using illegal turbochargers, it took only until 1995 for McRae to win the drivers title, which he secured with victory in a straight contest with his double champion team-mate, Carlos Sainz, on the season-ending Rally of Great Britain. Although still a winner with the outfit in individual rallies in succeeding years, including, increasingly, more specialised events such as the Acropolis Rally, Safari Rally and the Tour de Corse, McRae could not better second place in the standings in either 1996 or 1997, on both occasions behind Finland and Mitsubishi Ralliart's Tommi Mäkinen. He did, however help Subaru complete their run of three consecutive manufacturers' titles during this time. In what would turn out to be his final season with the team, in 1998 he won three more rallies and placed third in the standings, as well as winning the Race of Champions in Gran Canaria, the Canary Islands.
1999-2002: Ford
After several years of varying success, McRae switched to the M-Sport Ford team for 1999, driving the new Ford Focus rally car. The deal saw McRae earning six million pounds over two years, which at the time made him the highest earning rally driver in history. This move was immediately rewarded with two consecutive wins at the Safari Rally and Rally Portugal. A number of shunts and unreliability issues for the new car for much of the rest of that season, however, resulted in only sixth place in the championship standings overall. Moreover, a rare personal pointless run had begun for McRae that year which was only to be halted with a podium on the following February's Swedish Rally, the beginning of a recovery which saw McRae victorious in on the asphalt turns of Catalunya and the gravel of Greece, and post 4th in the 2000 overall standings. Midway through the 2000 season, the unreliability of the Focus had led to McRae threatening to leave the team if the problems continued. The upturn towards the end of the season resulted in him deciding to renew his contract with Ford for a further two years. McRae's intermittent success with Ford continued into 2001, where after failing to score in any of the first four rounds, including having momentarily led defending winner Tommi Makinen on the stages of the season opening Monte Carlo Rally prior to being forced into retirement, he then went on to score three consecutive victories in Argentina, Cyprus and Greece to tie with Mäkinen at the top of the points table. However, having again led the championship outright entering the final round in Great Britain, McRae once more missed out on a possible second title, crashing out and finishing second in the drivers championship, two points behind Subaru's Richard Burns.
With victory in the Safari Rally in 2002, McRae made the record books as the driver with most event wins in the World Rally Championship. His record has since been broken by Carlos Sainz, Sébastien Loeb and Marcus Grönholm. McRae's contract with Ford came to an end following the 2002 season, and after reportedly asking for wages of five million pounds a year, Ford decided against renewing the contract, reluctant to commit such a high amount of their budget to a drivers salary. The two parties split on amicable terms, with Ford's European director of motorsport Martin Whitaker stating "On behalf of all of us at Ford Motor Company I would like to publicly thank Colin and Nicky for their efforts during the past four years with the Ford team... I wish them both well in the future. McRae said of his time with Ford "It's been a very successful four years, we've achieved a lot of very good results and I'm quite happy that myself and Ford have had a very successful partnership.
2003: Citroën
For 2003, McRae signed for Citroën, a team of winning pedigree due to its successes of the previous year with young Frenchman Sebastien Loeb but otherwise undertaking its first complete campaign at World Rally Championship level. McRae's second place finish on his début in Monte Carlo alongside Loeb and Carlos Sainz whom, aboard the Xsara WRC, helped complete a 1-2-3 finish, transpired to be the finest result he would achieve for the team, for the season was to end with seventh in the drivers' championship, with no victories. Rule changes that were to be brought in for the 2004 season changed the previous practice of having three nominated points-scorers within a team to two. With Loeb partway through a multiple year contract, this meant the Citroën factory team, under Guy Frequelin's leadership, were forced to choose between dropping McRae or Sainz. With Sainz being the more successful of the two during the 2003 season, it was McRae who had to look elsewhere for 2004. David Richards, McRae's former boss at Subaru, who had by now taken over WRC's commercial rights holders ISC and worried that the loss of a character like McRae would damage his ability to market the sport, set about trying to help McRae find a drive for 2004. McRae was unable to find a team, and for the first time in over ten years he would not be competing in the World Rally Championship.Later career
As the only other potential alternative suitors, Subaru instead eventually chose Mikko Hirvonen to partner Petter Solberg, McRae found himself without a drive for the 2004 season. He instead pursued other interests, including competing in the Paris Dakar Rally and the 24 Hours of Le Mans(see below).
McRae then returned to the series for one off drives for Skoda on the 2005 Rally GB and Rally Australia, respectively finishing seventh and retiring due to a clutch problem on the final leg of the rally, the latter dashing hopes for what may otherwise have been only the team's second ever podium place after the 2001 Safari Rally.
On August 5 2006, McRae competed for Subaru in the first live televised American rally in Los Angeles as part of the X-Games. McRae rolled the car on the penultimate corner after landing awkwardly from a jump, which damaged the front bumper and left front tyre. Despite this McRae's time was only 0.13 seconds slower than eventual winner Travis Pastrana. McRae was, though, to have one more opportunity at world championship level: he was unexpectedly entered for his final rally by semi-works Kronos Citroën at Rally Turkey in September, where he replaced Sébastien Loeb while the Frenchman recovered from an injury he sustained in a cycling accident immediately prior to the event. A final-stage alternator problem consigned him and returning co-driver Nicky Grist, to a final placing outside the top ten.
McRae’s competitive spirit also led him to compete in racing series other than the WRC. In September 2002 he tried his hand at oval racing when he took part in the Ascar (UK version of NASCAR) race at the Rockingham Motor Speedway, Northamptonshire; eventually finishing in sixth place.
McRae rejoined Prodrive for the 2004 24 Hours of Le Mans where he took third place in the GTS class, and ninth position overall in a Ferrari 550-GTS Maranello partnering Darren Turner and Rickard Rydell. Fellow countryman, and Le Mans winner Allan McNish commented that "Colin has adapted far better than people expected" to endurance sportscar racing. At the end of 2004 he featured with the likes of Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher in the Race of Champions at the Stade de France in Paris.
McRae, made his debut on the gruelling Dakar Rally Raid with Nissan in January 2004, and impressed the team by scoring two stage wins on his way to a memorable finish on the gruelling trans-Sahara event. He returned to the Dakar in 2005 and was fastest on two of the first three stages in Morocco, before crashing out of the rally towards the end of stage six.
In August 2007, McRae claimed to still be working on finding a seat for the 2008 WRC season, stating that "if it doesn't happen next year, then I won't (return) because you can only be out of something at that level for so long.
Colin McRae Rally
Codemasters released the first Colin McRae Rally video game in 1998. Version 2, known as Colin McRae 2.0, was released in the year 2000, for Sony's PlayStation and for the PC; it was also ported to the Game Boy Advance in 2002. A third version found a wide audience on the PC and Xbox. Versions 04 and 2005 arrived in 2004 on all major platforms. 2005 was also remade for Sony's PSP and Nokia's N-Gage. Colin McRae: DiRT was the title for the next installment of the series, which launched in 2007 for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The PlayStation 3 edition was released in the UK on September 14, the day before McRae's death. A special edition for mobile phones will also be available from Codemasters Mobile.Colin McRae R4
Colin McRae chose the 2006 Goodwood Festival of Speed to unveil the McRae R4, which had been conceived at the beginning of 2005. The intention was to make a cheaper alternative to WRCs (World Rally Cars) with significantly lower running costs. The McRae R4 was designed for use in rallying, rally cross, circuit racing and ice racing events, with the possibility of a one-make race series.
Designed by Colin McRae and Dave Plant and built by DJM Race Preparation, the McRae R4’s chassis is based on a steel safety cage with carbon paneling front and rear, and a steel-covered cockpit area. Suspension consists of twin wishbones with Proflex dampers. The body styling has been done by Keith Burden and Tom Webster. It appears that some components of the vehicle have been taken from existing production cars, the doorline in particular appears very close to that of the Ford Ka.
The engine is a normally-aspirated 4 cylinder, 2.5 litre Millington Diamond Engine producing 350 BHP. Transmission is via a six-speed gearbox, manual or semi-auto, and by mechanical front and rear differentials with the option of mechanical or active central differential. The car can be produced in either 2 or 4 wheel drive formats.
Alison McRae has said that she would like production of the car to continue following Colin's death.
Death
At approximately 16:10 on 15 September 2007, an AS350B2 Squirrel helicopter registered to McRae crashed 1 mile north of Lanark, Scotland, close to the McRae family home. McRae's agent stated that McRae was piloting the helicopter at the time of the crash. McRae's father later confirmed that Colin was at the controls and that the crash was likely to have been the result of a mechanical failure. Police confirmed the next day that McRae, his five year old son Johnny, and two family friends, Graeme Duncan and Johnny's six year old friend Ben Porcelli, died in the crash. McRae's previously active website, ColinMcRae.com, was later replaced with a memorial screen stating a few details about the crash, and then with a short statement released on behalf of McRae's father, Jimmy, and later a book of condolences.Funeral and celebration services
The funeral for Colin and Johnny took place on Wednesday 26th September at Daldowie Crematorium near Glasgow, conducted by the Rev Tom Houston, who married the McRaes, and the Rev Steven Reid, chaplain at Johnny's school. An address was given by Robbie Head, a former rally driver and commentator who was a close friend of McRae's, with the Rev Houston giving the benediction. McRae's niece and nephews performed the tune Highland Cathedral, a popular funeral song. Also, the song "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding, a favourite song of McRae's, was played when the family entered the chapel; and The Proclaimers' song "I'm on My Way" was played when they left. Colin and Johnny McRae were cremated in the same coffin. Among the attendees at the funeral were fellow Scottish racing drivers Jackie Stewart and Dario Franchitti.
A "Celebration of Life" service took place at St Nicholas Church in Lanark on Sunday 30th September at 4pm. Images from McRae's career and personal life were displayed on large video screens outside the church. Around 700 mourners filled the church, with crowds of up to 15,000 outside. Shortly before 4pm, a lone bagpiper played "Flower of Scotland" as the family arrived at the church. The service was conducted by the Rev Alison Meikle, who said "Two weeks ago Lanark was struck by silence. A terrible silence bought at an enormous price. However, in our tears love is stronger than death." Later, the Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton song "Islands in the Stream", a favourite of Johnny's, was played. Friends of the pair shared poems and anecdotes from the McRaes' lives. After the service, Colin McRae's widow, brother and father bowed and applauded the crowds who had gathered outside to pay tribute to the McRaes.
Reaction
McRae's death was met by much grief from former colleagues, rivals and fans alike. Formula One driver David Coulthard, a good friend of McRae, who was due to represent Scotland along with him in the Race of Champions at Wembley Stadium on December 16, described him as "an understated yet fantastically talented individual", he also announced that he would race the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix with a helmet paint design similar to that of McRae's as a tribute. During the finale of the 2007 Scottish Rally Championship, the "Colin McRae Forest Stages" held in Perth in September 2007, , there was no number 1 car as McRae had been due to drive the course car on the event. Instead, his car was parked at the starting point of the rally, where fans were able to sign a book of condolences.Following his win at the Brands Hatch meeting of the 2007 World Touring Car Championship season, Andy Priaulx dedicated it to McRae, commenting that his death "shows how fragile life can be". McRae's former rival, four-time World Rally Champion Tommi Mäkinen commented the helicopter accident as terrifying news, and described McRae as "a pleasant fellow and a tough rival". Valentino Rossi, who was taught the basics of driving a rally car by McRae, said he was shocked and saddened by the sudden departure of the former World Rally Champion.
As a mark of respect for McRae, the Swedish Rally organizers set up an award for the longest jump over a crest on the Vargåsen stage of the rally. The inaugural winner of the award, named Colin's Crest, was Ford's United Arab Emirates driver Khalid al-Qassimi who recorded a distance of 30 m.
On the 27th of September 2008 the Colin McRae Forest Stages Rally took place in Perth, Scotland. An enhanced entry list of several former big name rally drivers took part in memory of Colin. The impressive entry list included ex-World Championship drivers Hannu Mikkola, Ari Vatanen (partnered by his 1981 WRC winning co-driver David Richards), Björn Waldegård, Stig Blomqvist, Malcolm Wilson, Russell Brookes, Jimmy McRae, Andrew Cowan and Louise Aitken-Walker, many competing in their original cars. A handful of current WRC drivers also took part including Matthew Wilson, Kris Meeke and Travis Pastrana. The event was deemed a great success, attracting record spectator numbers to the Perthshire forests. Outright winner was Stobart VK M-Sport Ford Rally Team driver Matthew Wilson in a Ford Focus WRC. Fittingly, Colin's brother Alister McRae won the classic category.
Investigation
After the crash, an investigative team from the UK Department for Transport Air Accidents Investigation Branch attended the scene in co-operation with Strathcyde Police. The wreckage of the helicopter was removed to Farnborough for further forensic investigation. Pilots operate under strict regulations, and are expected in the case of helicopters under CAA rules to undertake a competency test every year, and renew their licenses every five years - to not do so is illegal. It later emerged that McRae had not undertaken a competency check as required in March 2006, and that effectively his license had expired in February 2005. A CAA spokesman commented "The investigators must determine why he (McRae) hasn’t kept up to date with his documentation. There is no suggestion that Mr McRae was not a competent pilot.”Complete WRC results
References
Journals
- Evans, David (September 20, 2007) Autosport,"McRae Tribute", Vol. 189, No. 12, pp. 6-11, Haymarket Publications.
Notes
External links
- Colin McRae Official site
- Colin McRae Official site: Book of condolences
- Codemasters
- Colin McRae Official Sportswear Brand
- Rallybase stats page
- WRC Archive stats page
- Obituary in The Times
- Obituary and Memorial
- Photo of McRaes Helicopter at Airliners.net
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Wednesday October 08, 2008 at 07:05:08 PDT (GMT -0700)
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